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Modeling to inform economy‐wide pandemic policy: Bringing epidemiologists and economists together

Modeling to inform economy‐wide pandemic policy: Bringing epidemiologists and economists together Throughout the COVID‐19 pandemic, policymakers have been tasked with designing and implementing policies in the face of extraordinary uncertainty (Manski, 1999) and stark trade‐offs between public health and other measures of human well‐being. Policies designed to “flatten the curve” through social distancing often have negative economic consequences, such as unemployment, food insecurity, and business and school closures. The downstream consequences can also extend to outcomes more directly related to health, including intimate partner violence, addiction, depression, anxiety, suicide, and delays in medical treatments. Thus, efforts to mitigate the direct public health consequences of COVID‐19 may not only have negative effects along other (e.g., economic) dimensions, but can have adverse indirect public health consequences as well. By the same token, however, choosing not to aggressively address the immediate public health crisis posed by COVID‐19—a choice that has often been justified as a means of avoiding calamitous economic consequences—has driven repeated waves of exponential disease spread. These waves have not only driven morbidity and mortality; they also have had negative indirect effects on the economy, necessitating prolonged shutdowns and delaying resumption of economic activity. In summary, policies designed to promote public health or to preserve the economy can have the opposite effect http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Health Economics Wiley

Modeling to inform economy‐wide pandemic policy: Bringing epidemiologists and economists together

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References (27)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
ISSN
1057-9230
eISSN
1099-1050
DOI
10.1002/hec.4527
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Throughout the COVID‐19 pandemic, policymakers have been tasked with designing and implementing policies in the face of extraordinary uncertainty (Manski, 1999) and stark trade‐offs between public health and other measures of human well‐being. Policies designed to “flatten the curve” through social distancing often have negative economic consequences, such as unemployment, food insecurity, and business and school closures. The downstream consequences can also extend to outcomes more directly related to health, including intimate partner violence, addiction, depression, anxiety, suicide, and delays in medical treatments. Thus, efforts to mitigate the direct public health consequences of COVID‐19 may not only have negative effects along other (e.g., economic) dimensions, but can have adverse indirect public health consequences as well. By the same token, however, choosing not to aggressively address the immediate public health crisis posed by COVID‐19—a choice that has often been justified as a means of avoiding calamitous economic consequences—has driven repeated waves of exponential disease spread. These waves have not only driven morbidity and mortality; they also have had negative indirect effects on the economy, necessitating prolonged shutdowns and delaying resumption of economic activity. In summary, policies designed to promote public health or to preserve the economy can have the opposite effect

Journal

Health Economics – Wiley

Published: Jul 1, 2022

Keywords: behavior modeling; COVID‐19; economics; epidemiology; health outcomes; health‐wealth tradeoffs; public health

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