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COVID and the Economics of Public Health

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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Economics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 14771

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Patrick Jeurissen

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Guest Editor

1. IQ Healthcare Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University Medical Center, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2. Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, 2511 VX The Hague, The Netherlands
Interests: fiscal issues in health care; health systems; public health

Prof. Dr. Johan Polder

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Guest Editor

Dutch Institute of Public Health and Environment, Tilburg University, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands
Interests: economics of public health

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

COVID-19 teaches us many lessons. One is about the importance of public health. Every day we can see how huge the negative consequences of a pandemic are, not only for global health, but also for the broader societies that face shrinking economies and increasing income disparities. Experts warned us for quite some time before COVID-19 arrived about these pandemic risks. COVID-19 raises important questions for the larger community of public health economists. How do we strengthen and increase the legitimacy of their analytical toolboxes?

This Special Issue seeks original contributions that analyze how the toolbox of public health economics can strengthen effective policies for pandemic outbreaks, such as COVID-19.

Submitted articles can cover a range of issues. What do we know about the cost-effectiveness of public health interventions that target COVID-19 and other infectious diseases? How can cost-effectiveness studies rigorously assess pandemic preparedness (including one-health initiatives)? What are the effects of the effective prevention of infectious diseases on the total costs of healthcare? How can more participative and interactive approaches in the field of HTA contribute to effective policymaking? What do we know about effective models of the governance for a cost-effectiveness analysis of public health? Just to name a few scholarly dilemmas.

We welcome a range of manuscripts: (systematic) reviews, empirical studies (quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods), perspectives, viewpoints, etc.

Prof. Dr. Patrick Jeurissen
Prof. Dr. Johan Polder
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

public health
COVID-19
cost-effectiveness analysis (HTA)
political economy of public health
infectious diseases
governance
interactive HTA

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 657 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Absenteeism Costs Due to COVID-19 and Their Predictors in Non-Hospitalized Patients in Sweden: A Poisson Regression Analysis

by Marta A. Kisiel, Seika Lee, Helena Janols and Ahmad Faramarzi

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(22), 7052; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph20227052 - 10 Nov 2023

Viewed by 1369

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to estimate absenteeism costs and identify their predictors in non-hospitalized patients in Sweden. Methods: This cross-sectional study’s data were derived from the longitudinal project conducted at Uppsala University Hospital. The mean absenteeism costs due to COVID-19 were calculated using the human capital approach, and a Poisson regression analysis was employed to determine predictors of these costs. Results: The findings showed that the average absenteeism cost due to COVID-19 was USD 1907.1, compared to USD 919.4 before the pandemic (p < 0.001). Notably, the average absenteeism cost for females was significantly higher due to COVID-19 compared to before the pandemic (USD 1973.5 vs. USD 756.3, p = 0.001). Patients who had not fully recovered at the 12-month follow-up exhibited significantly higher costs than those without symptoms at that point (USD 3389.7 vs. USD 546.7, p < 0.001). The Poisson regression revealed that several socioeconomic factors, including age, marital status, country of birth, educational level, smoking status, BMI, and occupation, along with COVID-19-related factors such as severity at onset, pandemic wave, persistent symptoms at the follow-up, and newly introduced treatment for depression after the infection, were significant predictors of the absenteeism costs. Conclusions: Our study reveals that the mean absenteeism costs due to COVID-19 doubled compared to the year preceding the pandemic. This information is invaluable for decision-makers and contributes to a better understanding of the economic aspects of COVID-19. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

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17 pages, 374 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Effectiveness of Network Relations in Poland during the Economic Crisis Caused by COVID-19: Interorganizational Network Viewpoints

by Aleksandra Sus, Michał Organa and Joanna Hołub-Iwan

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(2), 1178; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph20021178 - 09 Jan 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1067

Abstract

The global pandemic triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has caused marked changes in the economic landscape in essentially every branch of the economy. The pandemic has disordered lives across all countries in the world and also affected the public sector in interesting ways. Our empirical research, of which selected elements are presented in this paper, was conducted under pandemic conditions. This paper aims to identify the relationships between selected distinguishing features of the oncological interorganizational network (exchange, engagement, reciprocity) and determine their effectiveness under the conditions of the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A side thread, which concludes the article, is the introduction of the category “economic virus” into management terminology; i.e., a set of factors causing economic crises with a microbiological genesis. Of particular importance are considerations regarding the uncertainty of the length and depth of the health crisis-related economic effects in financial markets and corporate decision making. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

14 pages, 600 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Model of Panic Buying and Workforce under COVID-19

by Guohua He and Zirun Hu

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(24), 16891; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph192416891 - 15 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 984

Abstract

Allowing there to be an undersupply of medical resources and infection amid the social workforce, this paper proposes a theory to show how panic buying is induced and how bad the workforce status could be. By developing a novel general equilibrium model, we find that for any retail price that is higher than the buyer’s reserve value, the buying competition will be induced and the medical resources supply will further be tightened. Moreover, if the transmission rate of COVID-19 surpasses the theoretical threshold that is proposed by this paper, the whole workforce in our simulated economy will inevitably be infected. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

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16 pages, 371 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Medical Staff Shortages and the Performance of Outpatient Clinics in Poland during the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Piotr Korneta and Magda Chmiel

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(22), 14827; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph192214827 - 11 Nov 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1638

Abstract

Unlike many industries, healthcare was simultaneously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in two opposite ways. On the one hand, the industry faced shortages and overload of many medical representatives such as nurses and infectious disease professionals, but on the other, many medical professionals such as dentists were left with considerably reduced demand. The objective of this paper is to study the efficiency of medical staff allocation and the performance of small and medium sized outpatient clinics in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Owing to the contemporaneity of this problem, we have employed a multiple case study approach. Our sample comprises 5 small and medium-sized outpatient clinics located in Poland in the 3-year period 2019–2021. The results indicate a considerable percentage of medical staff employed in small and medium-sized outpatient clinics remained outside the pandemic, despite their potential provision of healthcare services. Four of the five clinics studied remained passive towards the pandemic. In view of future pandemics, the indications we provide have practical implications for outpatient clinics executives and public health policymakers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

22 pages, 5263 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Trade-Off between COVID-19 Pandemic Prevention and Control and Economic Stimulus

by Fangfang Liu, Zheng Ma, Ziqing Wang and Shaobo Xie

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(21), 13956; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph192113956 - 27 Oct 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1411

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has posed a severe threat to public health and economic activity. Governments all around the world have taken positive measures to, on the one hand, contain the epidemic spread and, on the other hand, stimulate the economy. Without question, tightened anti-epidemic policy measures restrain people’s mobility and deteriorate the levels of social and economic activity. Meanwhile, loose policy measures bring little harm to the economy temporarily but could accelerate the transmission of the virus and ultimately wreck social and economic development. Therefore, these two kinds of governmental decision-making behaviors usually conflict with each other. With the purpose of realizing optimal socio-economic benefit over the full duration of the epidemic and to provide a helpful suggestion for the government, a trade-off is explored in this paper between the prevention and control of the epidemic, and economic stimulus. First, the susceptible–infectious–recovered (SIR) model is introduced to simulate the epidemic dynamics. Second, a state equation is constructed to describe the system state variable—the level of socio-economic activity dominated by two control variables. Specifically, these two variables are the strengths of the measures taken for pandemic prevention and control, and economic stimulus. Then, the objective function used to maximize the total socio-economic benefit over the epidemic’s duration is defined, and an optimal control problem is developed. The statistical data of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan are used to validate the SIR model, and a COVID-19 epidemic scenario is used to evaluate the proposed method. The solution is discussed in both static and dynamic strategies, according to the knowledge of the epidemic’s duration. In the static strategy, two scenarios with different strengths (in terms of anti-epidemic and economic stimulus measures) are analyzed and compared. In the dynamic strategy, two global optimization algorithms, including the dynamic programming (DP) and Pontryagin’s minimum principle (PMP), respectively, are used to acquire the solutions. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis of model parameters is conducted. The results demonstrate that the static strategy, which is independent of the epidemic’s duration and can be easily solved, is capable of finding the optimal strengths of both policy measures. Meanwhile, the dynamic strategy, which generates global optimal trajectories of the control variables, can provide the path that leads to attaining the optimal total socio-economic benefit. The results reveal that the optimal total socio-economic benefit of the dynamic strategy is slightly higher than that of the static strategy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

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13 pages, 1475 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Common Demand vs. Limited Supply—How to Serve the Global Fight against COVID-19 through Proper Supply of COVID-19 Vaccines

by Yiqing Su, Yanyan Li and Yanggui Liu

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(3), 1339; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph19031339 - 25 Jan 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4207

Abstract

Vaccination plays an essential role in the fight against Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The currently insufficient vaccine production capacity makes it difficult to balance supply with demand, which has led to a contradiction between command demand and limited supply. According to analysis based on game theory, the attributes of COVID-19 vaccines vary with supply strategies formulated by vaccine-producing countries. This means that vaccine-receiving countries can only be motivated to prepare operable vaccine distribution plans through the supply of COVID-19 vaccines as global public goods. The rational distribution of global public goods must be guaranteed by a global supply institution system. To that end, Elinor Ostrom’s eight design principles provide a basis for designing such a global supply system. This paper proposes a nested institution solution for guaranteeing the global supply of COVID-19 vaccines based on the design principles, which include clearly defined boundaries, proportional equivalence between benefits and costs, collective-choice arrangements, monitoring, graduated sanctions, conflict-resolution mechanisms, minimal recognition of rights to organize, and nested enterprises. To win this global fight against COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines must not only be treated as global public goods, but countries must also be urged to coordinate cooperation in global institutional design, thus ensuring that COVID-19 vaccines can truly benefit all mankind. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

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8 pages, 334 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Mass Workplace COVID-19 Rapid Testing on Health and Healthcare Resource Savings

by Francesc López Seguí, Jose Maria Navarrete Duran, Albert Tuldrà, Maria Sarquella, Boris Revollo, Josep Maria Llibre, Jordi Ara del Rey, Oriol Estrada Cuxart, Roger Paredes Deirós, Guillem Hernández Guillamet, Bonaventura Clotet Sala, Josep Vidal Alaball and Patricia Such Faro

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(13), 7129; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph18137129 - 03 Jul 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2742

Abstract

Background: The epidemiological situation generated by COVID-19 has cast into sharp relief the delicate balance between public health priorities and the economy, with businesses obliged to toe the line between employee health and continued production. In an effort to detect as many cases as possible, isolate contacts, cut transmission chains, and limit the spread of the virus in the workplace, mass testing strategies have been implemented in both public health and industrial contexts to minimize the risk of disruption in activity. Objective: To evaluate the economic impact of the mass workplace testing strategy as carried out by a large automotive company in Catalonia in terms of health and healthcare resource savings. Methodology: Analysis of health costs and impacts based on the estimation of the mortality and morbidity avoided because of screening, and the resulting savings in healthcare costs. Results: The economic impact of the mass workplace testing strategies (using both PCR and RAT tests) was approximately €10.44 per test performed or €5575.49 per positive detected; 38% of this figure corresponds to savings derived from better use of health resources (hospital beds, ICU beds, and follow-up of infected cases), while the remaining 62% corresponds to improved health rates due to the avoided morbidity and mortality. In scenarios with higher positivity rates and a greater impact of the infection on health and the use of health resources, these results could be up to ten times higher (€130.24 per test performed or €69,565.59 per positive detected). Conclusion: In the context of COVID-19, preventive actions carried out by the private sector to safeguard industrial production also have concomitant public benefits in the form of savings in healthcare costs. Thus, governmental bodies need to recognize the value of implementing such strategies in private settings and facilitate them through, for example, subsidies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue COVID and the Economics of Public Health)

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