Selecting Optimal Prices and Outpost Locations for Rural Vaccination Campaigns

Dohyeong Kim, Donald T. Lauria and Dale Whittington

International Regional Science Review, 2014, vol. 37, issue 4, 436-458

Abstract: A contingent valuation survey (willingness-to-pay study) was conducted in 2004 to measure household demand for typhoid vaccines in a rural township in China with approximately 54,000 people living in 141 villages. The results showed that travel distance to vaccination sites and vaccination price affected the private demand for typhoid fever vaccinations. The number and location of vaccination outposts are thus important decision variables for a new vaccination campaign that is under consideration. This article develops and applies an optimization model for planning vaccination programs. The model determines what price to charge, how many vaccination outposts to use, where to locate them, and what capacities they need. The model uses demand information from the contingent valuation survey and cost information from similar vaccination campaigns in China and assumes that costs must be covered by user fees. The model determined that the number of outposts to use for maximizing coverage was fourteen, which would make average one-way travel distance for users about 0.6 km. The optimal vaccination price was USD 1.25, and about 87 percent of the population would be vaccinated. A suboptimal solution of the model showed that only 6 outposts instead of 14 would probably vaccinate about 83 percent of the population, and the price could be reduced to USD 0.83. The model is easy to use and solve and can be applied to different size regions.

Keywords: health care; human resources; policy and applications; modeling in GIS; location models; spatial analysis; methods; optimization; other methods; methods; cost–benefit analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:inrsre:v:37:y:2014:i:4:p:436-458

DOI: 10.1177/0160017612461505

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