Mussio, Irene

Short Bio

Irene is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Leeds University Business School, where she holds internal affiliations with the Centre for Decision Research, the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures and Water@Leeds. Since 2024, she is the co-director of the Healthy Buildings Network. Beyond their primary role at Leeds, she maintains significant international academic ties as an Affiliate Associate Professor (Grado 4) in the Health Economics Group at the Universidad de la República and as an Affiliate Researcher at the McMaster Decision Science Laboratory. Irene earned a PhD in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2018 and has held two postdocs at McMaster University and Newcastle University.

Irene serves as the Uruguay country delegate for the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE). She is part of the executive committee and the University of Leeds institutional lead for the Network of UK behavioural and experimental economists (BEE UK) and is the honorary treasurer for IAREP (2025-2027). 

 

Research Interests

Irene is a behavioural economist and investigates the relationship between risk and behaviour using a range of tools, including economic experiments (and valuation experiments), around topics related to climate change, environmental hazards and the impacts of these on health. Her work is interdisciplinary, merging economics with public health and environmental health sciences. 

 

Awards, Honours and Scholarships (selected)

• 2025 - Horizons Global Academy Crucible Programme Pump Priming Funding
• 2025 - British Academy Small Research Grant (SRG2425\251014)
• 2025 - IAREP funding: Workshop on the psychology of climate risk communication
• 2024-26 - Healthy Buildings Network funding (Horizons Institute Challenge Networks winner)

 

Publications

1. Mussio, I., Triunfo, P., & Gerstenblüth, M. (2026). Markov-model cost-effectiveness evaluation of a cessation programme when tobacco policies are comprehensive. BMJ open, 16(2), e113050.
2. Mussio, I., Triunfo, P., Gerstenblüth, M., Raggio, V., Cardozo, P., Naya, H., & Spangenberg, L. (2026). From the rare to the essential: analyzing the needs of physicians and families managing rare diseases. BMC Health Services Research.
3. Mussio, I., Chilton, S., Kent, D. A., Gerald, L. B., & Wilson, A. M. (2025). Applying a Risk‐Risk Tradeoff Economics Approach to the Occupational Health of Nurses: Economic and Microbial Risk Analysis. Risk Analysis.
4. Bulla-Holthaus, N., Kairies-Schwarz, N., & Mussio, I. (2025). The effects of cognitive load and mindfulness meditation on decisions related to risk and time. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 118, 102412. 
5. Amir‐ud‐Din, R., Khan, M., Murad, Z., & Mussio, I. (2025). Clear Waters, Bright Futures: Do Low‐Cost Information Interventions Increase Health Preventive Behaviors. Health Economics.
6. Wilson, A. M., Mussio, I., Verhougstraete, M. P., Jung, Y., Ashraf, A., Chilton, S., & Hamilton, K. A. (2025). A risk-risk tradeoff approach for incorporating the public’s risk perceptions into quantitative microbial risk assessment. Journal of occupational and environmental hygiene, 22(2), 132-148.
7. Kairies-Schwarz, N., Mussio, I., Bulla-Holthaus, N., Wankmüller, E., Wolff, G., Gontscharuk, V., ... & Icks, A. (2024). Risk and time preferences in individuals with lifestyle-related and non-lifestyle-related cardiovascular diseases: a pilot study. BMJ open, 14(5), e080867.
8. Chilton, S., Duxbury, D., Mussio, I., Nielsen, J. S., & Sharma, S. (2024). A double-bounded risk-risk trade-off analysis of heatwave-related mortality risk: Evidence from India. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 68(1), 1-23.
9. Forteza, A., Mussio, I., & Pereyra, J. S. (2024). Can political gridlock undermine checks and balances? A lab experiment. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 108, 102128.
10. Mussio, I., Chilton, S., Duxbury, D., & Nielsen, J. S. (2024). A risk–risk trade‐off assessment of climate‐induced mortality risk changes. Risk Analysis, 44(3), 536-552.
11. Mussio, I., & de Oliveira, A. C. (2022). An (un) healthy social dilemma: a normative messaging field experiment with flu vaccinations. Health Economics Review, 12(1), 41.
12. Mussio, I., Sosa Andrés, M., & Kidwai, A. H. (2023). Higher order risk attitudes in the time of COVID-19: an experimental study. Oxford Economic Papers, 75(1), 163-182.
13. Mussio, I., & de Oliveira, A. C. (2022). The effect of additional background risk on mixed risk behavior. Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 6(S1), 85-92. Special Issue: Recent Applications and Developments in Behavioral Economics and Finance
14. Mussio, I., Brandt, S., & Hanemann, M. (2021). Parental beliefs and willingness to pay for reduction in their child's asthma symptoms: A joint estimation approach. Health Economics, 30(1), 129-143.