The economics of aging with infectious and chronic diseases

Holger Strulik and Volker Grossmann

Economics & Human Biology, 2024, vol. 52, issue C

Abstract: We develop an economic model of aging in which the susceptibility and severity of infectious diseases depend on the accumulated health deficits (immunosenescence) and the life history of infections affects the accumulation of chronic health deficits (inflammaging). Individuals invest in their health to slow down health deficit accumulation and take measures to protect themselves from infectious diseases. We calibrate the model for an average American and explore how health expenditure, life expectancy, and the value of life depend on individual characteristics, medical technology, and the disease environment. We then use counterfactual computational experiments of the U.S. epidemiological transition 1860–2010 to show that the decline of infectious diseases caused a substantial decline of chronic diseases and contributed more to increasing life expectancy than advances in the treatment of chronic diseases.

Keywords: Epidemiological transition; Health behavior; Health deficits; Immunosenescence; Infections; Inflammaging; Longevity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D15 I10 I12 J24 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X23001004
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:52:y:2024:i:c:s1570677x23001004

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101319

Access Statistics for this article

Economics & Human Biology is currently edited by J. Komlos, Inas R Kelly and Joerg Baten

More articles in Economics & Human Biology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().