The economics of reducing food-borne diseases in developing countries: the case of diarrhea in Rwanda

Abstract

The paper provides a methodology which is suitable for the analysis of the social cost of disease and the benefits and cost of health intervention by integrating public health analysis and economics. The approach developed in the paper is applied to food-borne diarrhea in Rwanda. The results suggest that both prevention and treatment are socially very profitable. However, simple treatments such as Oral Rehydration Therapy have a higher social rate of return than prevention.