Applying the competing--risks model to multi--cause mortality,
this paper provides a theoretical and empirical investigation of the
positive complementarities that occur between disease--specific policy
interventions. We argue that since an individual cannot die twice, competing
risks imply that individuals will not waste resources on causes that are
not the most immediate, but will make health investments so as to equalize
cause--specific mortality. However, equal mortality risk from ...
Applying the competing--risks model to multi--cause mortality,
this paper provides a theoretical and empirical investigation of the
positive complementarities that occur between disease--specific policy
interventions. We argue that since an individual cannot die twice, competing
risks imply that individuals will not waste resources on causes that are
not the most immediate, but will make health investments so as to equalize
cause--specific mortality. However, equal mortality risk from a variety
of diseases does not imply that disease--specific public health interventions
are a waste. Rather, a cause--specific intervention produces spillovers
to other disease risks, so that the overall reduction in mortality will
generally be larger than the direct effect measured on the targeted
disease. The assumption that mortality from non--targeted diseases
remains the same after a cause--specific intervention under--estimates
the true effect of such programs, since the background mortality is
also altered as a result of intervention. Analyzing data from one of the
most important public health programs ever introduced, the Expanded
Program on Immunization (EPI) of the United Nations, we find evidence
for the existence of such complementarities, involving causes that are
not biomedically, but behaviorally, linked.
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