Comorbidities and the willingness to pay for reducing the risk of a targeted disease: introducing endogenous effort for risk reduction

Previous studies demonstrated that the willingness to pay (WTP) for reducing the risk of a targeted disease increases with the severity of a comorbidity condition. They evaluated the WTPs at positions where otherwise identical individuals who have unequal comorbidity conditions all have the same consumption of wealth and the same probability of getting a targeted disease. This paper endogenizes the individual effort to reduce the risk of the targeted disease. It finds that individuals with more severe comorbidity will spend more on reducing the risk of the targeted disease and, therefore, have a lower probability of getting the targeted disease and a lower net consumption of wealth at equilibrium. Nonetheless, we find that the previous conclusion concerning the relationship between the WTP for the targeted risk reduction and the comorbidity is robust. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.