Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP1283
Authors: William H. Dow; Jessica Holmes; Tomas Philipson; Xavier Sala-i-Martin
Abstract: This paper provides a theoretical and empirical investigation of the positive complementarities between disease-specific policies introduced by competing risks of mortality. The incentive to invest in prevention against one cause of death depends positively on the level of survival from other causes. This means that a specific public health intervention has benefits other than the direct medical reduction in mortality: it affects the incentives to fight other diseases so the overall reduction in mortality will, in general, be larger than that predicted by the direct medical effects. We discuss evidence of these cross-disease effects by using data on neonatal tetanus vaccination through the Expanded Programme on Immunization of the World Health Organization.
Keywords: Complementarities; Disease-specific; Public health interventions; Tetanus programmes; Endogenous mortality
JEL Codes: I10; I11
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| tetanus vaccination program (H56) | neonatal mortality (J13) |
| tetanus vaccination program (H56) | post-neonatal mortality (J13) |
| tetanus vaccination program (H56) | health inputs investment (I15) |
| health inputs investment (I15) | child survival rates (J13) |
| tetanus vaccination program (H56) | birthweight (J13) |
| birthweight (J13) | health outcomes (I14) |
| tetanus vaccination program (H56) | health-related behaviors (I12) |
| health-related behaviors (I12) | overall health environment for children (I19) |