Health Economics in Development
How disease, malnutrition, and weak health systems trap countries in poverty, and which interventions deliver the greatest impact.
The Health-Poverty Trap
Health and economic development are locked in a vicious or virtuous cycle. Poor health reduces productivity: a worker with malaria loses an average of 5-20 working days per episode. Childhood malnutrition -- which affects roughly 150 million children under five -- permanently impairs cognitive development, reducing lifetime earnings by an estimated 10-17%. HIV/AIDS killed a generation of prime-age workers in southern Africa, devastating economies and leaving millions of orphans.
At the macro level, economists Jeffrey Sachs and others have estimated that malaria alone reduces GDP growth by 1.3 percentage points per year in heavily affected countries. The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health calculated that investing $66 per person per year in health interventions in low-income countries could generate economic returns of $360 billion annually by 2020. The returns on health investment are enormous -- the challenge is delivering care in settings with few doctors, weak infrastructure, and limited funding.