Policies increasing the number of disaster medical volunteers with a sense of mission

Abstract

This study presents an economic analysis of policies designed to increase the number of healthcare workers with a sense of mission as disaster medical volunteers, who play critically important roles during or immediately after natural disasters. I apply a cultural transmission model to ascertain how changes occur in the ratios of healthcare workers motivated by a sense of mission and healthcare workers motivated by economic incentives. As a result, increasing subsidies to hospitals that deploy medical volunteers to disasters increases the number of healthcare workers motivated by economic incentives. Therefore, I show that increasing the ethical standards of healthcare workers while decreasing subsidies to hospitals could increase the number of healthcare workers motivated by a sense of mission.