The development of nations conditions the disease space

Antonios Garas, Sophie Guthmuller and Athanasios Lapatinas

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-35

Abstract: Using the economic complexity methodology on data for disease prevalence in 195 countries during the period of 1990-2016, we propose two new metrics for quantifying the disease space of countries. With these metrics, we analyze the geography of diseases and empirically investigate the effect of economic development on the health complexity of countries. We show that a higher income per capita increases the complexity of countries’ diseases. We also show that complex diseases tend to be non-ubiquitous diseases that are prevalent in disease-diversified (complex) countries, while non-complex diseases tend to be non-ubiquitous diseases that are prevalent in non-diversified (non-complex) countries. Furthermore, we build a disease-level index that links a disease to the average level of GDP per capita of the countries in which the disease is prevalent. With this index, we highlight the link between economic development and the complexity of diseases and illustrate how increases in income per capita are associated with more complex diseases.

Date: 2021
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Related works:
Working Paper: The development of nations conditions the disease space (2019)
Working Paper: The development of nations conditions the disease space (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0244843

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244843

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