Abstract
Using the economic complexity methodology on data for disease prevalence in 195 countries during the period of 1990-2016, we propose two new metrics for quantifying the disease space of countries. With these metrics, we analyze the geography of diseases and empirically investigate the effect of economic development on the health complexity of countries. We show that a higher income per capita increases the complexity of countries’ diseases. We also show that complex diseases tend to be non-ubiquitous diseases that are prevalent in disease-diversified (complex) countries, while non-complex diseases tend to be non-ubiquitous diseases that are prevalent in non-diversified (non-complex) countries. Furthermore, we build a disease-level index that links a disease to the average level of GDP per capita of the countries in which the disease is prevalent. With this index, we highlight the link between economic development and the complexity of diseases and illustrate how increases in income per capita are associated with more complex diseases.
Highlights
There is strong historical evidence that the wealth of nations is positively linked to the health of their populations
We develop a new metric called the Health Complexity Index, HCI, that quantifies the disease space by assigning lower values to countries with diseases located at the periphery of the disease space and higher values to countries with diseases located at the centre of the disease space
The results show that the relationship between the Disease Complexity Index (DCI) and the Disease-Income Complexity Index (DICI) is the outcome of the correlations both between diseases and within diseases
Summary
There is strong historical evidence that the wealth of nations is positively linked to the health of their populations. Stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and depression are mental disorders that are more prevalent in high-income countries. While they account for only 9% of the burden in low-income countries, this figure is 18% in middle-income and 27% in high-income countries [5]. Industrialization stimulates urbanization, the process of population migration from rural areas to cities. This makes urban areas focal points for many
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