China
Africa
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The Social Construction of Airborne Infections
Published in AnnaMarie Bliss, Dak Kopec, Architectural Factors for Infection and Disease Control, 2023
Ameliorating TB’s impact on humanity is a top priority in global health. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that a quarter of the global population is infected with latent mycobacterium TB, and of those infected, 5 to 10 percent develop active TB. Despite the disease being preventable and mostly curable, it kills nearly 1.5 million people worldwide annually, according to the WHO (2021). Other long-standing pathogens circulating in the human population, such as polio, tetanus, and measles, have been significantly reduced in prevalence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.a). Another pathogen – smallpox, which became the first vaccine-preventable disease in the late 18th century (and was preventable via inoculation as long ago as 1000 CE in China) – was completely eradicated by 1980 (Niederhuber, 2014). Despite the ongoing efforts of scientists, there is still no reliable vaccine for TB.
Prevention of seasonal influenza outbreak via healthcare insurance
Published in IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering, 2022
Ting-Yu Ho, Zelda B. Zabinsky, Paul A. Fishman, Shan Liu
Research interested in incorporating the effects of individual vaccination choices into flu epidemic modeling has been growing in recent years. For example, Fu et al. (2011) studied the roles of individual imitation behavior and population structure in vaccination uptake. Perisic and Bauch (2009) simulated the transmission of a vaccine-preventable disease using a Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered model through a random, static contact network and examined individual vaccination behavior based on neighborhood. Nevertheless, an individual’s motive to vaccinate is not only influenced by disease factors such as infectious neighbors or vaccination costs but also by incentives provided by policy makers, e.g., insurance companies. Incentives designed for controlling and preventing flu should also be factored into a rational self-interested decision-making process.