Vaccination as a Trade-Off between Risks

While it reduces the probability of facing a primary (or vaccine-preventable) disease, vaccination may also introduce the risk of facing vaccine induced side effects or secondary diseases. In this paper, we address the link between this feature of vaccination and attitudes toward risk. Risk aversion is shown to increase the propensity to vaccinate when the primary disease is lethal or when the risks of primary disease and of side effects are faced in different periods. When the primary disease is non-lethal and it may occur together with side effects, we show how the effect of risk aversion is affected by the probabilities and severities of each disease