The development of nations conditions the disease space
JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2019/09
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 relatedness between diseases, or 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.
Furthermore, we build a disease-level index that links a disease to the average level of GDP per capita of the countries for which they have a relative disease disadvantage. With this index, we highlight the link between economic development and the complexity of diseases and illustrate, at the disease-level, how increases in income per capita are associated with more complex diseases.
GARAS Antonios;
GUTHMULLER Sophie;
LAPATINAS Athanasios;
2019-08-30
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC116399
978-92-76-02924-3 (online),
2467-2203 (online),
OP KJ-AE-19-009-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC116399,
10.2760/793876 (online),
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