Using Mobile Phone Data to Reduce Spread of Disease

Sveta Milusheva

No 9198, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: While human mobility has important benefits for economic growth, it can generate negative externalities. This paper studies the effect of mobility on the spread of disease in a low-incidence setting when people do not internalize their risks to others. Using malaria as a case study and 15 billion mobile phone records across nine million SIM cards, this paper causally quantifies the relationship between travel and the spread of disease. The estimates indicate that an infected traveler contributes to 1.7 additional cases reported in the health facility at the traveler's destination. This paper develops a simulation-based policy tool that uses mobile phone data to inform strategic targeting of travelers based on their origins and destinations. The simulations suggest that targeting informed by mobile phone data could reduce the caseload by 50 percent more than current strategies that rely only on previous incidence.

Keywords: Malaria; Leprosy; Communicable Diseases; Cholera; Health Care Services Industry; Pharmaceuticals&Pharmacoeconomics; Pharmaceuticals Industry; Telecommunications Infrastructure; Health Economics&Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-03-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-pay
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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