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- Title
Public Health and Development: A New Analytical Framework.
- Authors
Paglin, Morton
- Abstract
The article presents a model which aims to correct notion that deficiency by integrating public health as a consumer good into the theory of consumer choice and welfare, thus making life expectancy gains comparable to gains in real product. The demand for health services represents an expenditure to relieve pain and suffering and to reduce the risk of dying. Other consumer goods compete with health services in two ways: these other goods also contribute to improved life expectancy as well as directly satisfying other wants. Consumers demand health services as they do other goods because they yield utility. The specific utility is in the form of a greater sense of well-being, reduction of anxiety about illness and death (especially through preventive medical services such as immunizations, check-ups, etc.); in short, better health and the expectation of a longer life. As with other goods, the utility derived depends on the psychological attitudes of the consuming unit. public health programmes may in large part be viewed as collective consumption goods, in the sense that they are not individually packageable, or at least a larger part of the benefits are external to the individual utilizing the health service. Mosquito-malaria abatement programmes, water purification and sewage treatment plants, mass innoculation campaigns, and the treatment of persons with infectious diseases who act as vectors are all examples of pure or quasi-collective consumption goods.
- Subjects
PUBLIC health; LIFE expectancy; QUALITY of life; CONSUMER goods; MEDICAL care
- Publication
Economica, 1974, Vol 41, Issue 164, p432
- ISSN
0013-0427
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2553354