Individuals and Externalities in Economic Epidemiology : A Tension and Synthesis

Standard economic and public choice approaches to epidemiology ignore the role individuals play in disease prevention. Whereas one approach recognizes people respond to changing prevalence rates, another suggests they succumb to free riding and collective action problems. Following the literature on collective action and the private provision of public goods, people can respond to changing prevalence rates by resolving collective action problems, especially when they lower transaction costs. In the context of mosquito control and malaria prevention, these insights suggest that decisions related to migration, housing, and community—and supporting markets—influence exposure to mosquitos and, potentially, malaria prevalence rates