Abstract
Externality exists in healthcare when an individual benefits from others being healthy as it reduces the probability of getting sick from illness. Healthy workers are considered to be the more productive labourers leading to a country’s positive economic growth over time. Several research studies have modelled disease transmission and its economic impact on a single country in isolation. We developed a two-country disease-economy model that explores disease transmission and cross-border infection of disease for its impacts. The model includes aspects of a worsening and rapid transmission of disease juxtaposed by positive impacts to the economy from tourism. We found that high friction affects the gross domestic product (GDP) of the lower-income country more than the higher-income country. Health aid from one country to another can substantially help grow the GDP of both countries due to the positive externality of disease reduction. Disease has less impact to both economies if the relative cost of treatment over an alternative (e.g. vaccination) is lower than the baseline value. Providing medical supplies to another country, adopting moderate friction between the countries, and finding treatments with lower costs result in the best scenario to preserve the GDP of both countries.
Highlights
Diseases of poverty include infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria and HIV/AIDS, as well as diseases stemming from malnutrition
We explore how mobility between countries and communities can affect the respective economies through disease transmission and how health aids can help to break the effects of the externality
We examined the effects of the initial economy status, population size, friction and cost of treatment on the disease per capita gross domestic product (GDP) ($1000) in country 1 (a)
Summary
Diseases of poverty include infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), malaria and HIV/AIDS, as well as diseases stemming from malnutrition. Poverty is a main social determinant of health in developing countries and diseases of poverty are often correlated with malnutrition [1]. It was estimated that diseases of poverty account for almost half of the royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R. Burden of diseases in countries with the highest poverty rates. Despite being manageable with existing 2 treatments and often preventable, diseases of poverty exact an enormous amount of mortality and morbidity toll on the populations in low-income countries [2]
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