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Diagnosing food-borne illness: A behavioral analysis of barriers to testing

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Abstract

Public health authorities rely on the timely flow of laboratory results to detect and control food-borne illnesses. At times, social and economic barriers limit individuals’ ability to get needed tests. We demonstrate a simple behavioral approach to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions designed to remove three social and economic barriers to testing individuals with acute diarrheal illness: testing costs, income loss, and inconvenience. We use readily available statistics to rank programs by their cost effectiveness to identify those most worthy of studying in greater detail.

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Acknowledgements

The research reported here was supported by a European Community Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the seventh European Community Framework Program to the first author. The European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The views expressed are those of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Gülbanu Kaptan & Baruch Fischhoff

  2. Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, 6706, KN, The Netherlands

    Gülbanu Kaptan

  3. Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Baruch Fischhoff

Authors
  1. Gülbanu Kaptan
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  2. Baruch Fischhoff
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Correspondence to Gülbanu Kaptan.

Additional information

How can laboratory tests for diarrheal illnesses, critical for public health, be encouraged? The authors have shown how to compare the cost effectiveness of various approaches.

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Kaptan, G., Fischhoff, B. Diagnosing food-borne illness: A behavioral analysis of barriers to testing. J Public Health Pol 32, 60–72 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2010.42

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