The development of nations conditions the disease space

Garas, Antonios and Guthmuller, Sophie and Lapatinas, Athanasios (2019): The development of nations conditions the disease space.

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 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 that have prevalent cases of the disease. 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.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: health complexity, disease complexity, economic development
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I15 - Health and Economic Development

References

Abdon A and Felipe J (2011), "The product space: What does it say about the opportunities for growth and structural transformation of Sub-Saharan Africa?", Levy Economics Institte Working Paper . (670)

Acemoglu D and Johnson S (2007), "Disease and development: the effect of life expectancy on economic growth", Journal of political Economy. Vol. 115(6), pp. 925-985. The University of Chicago Press.

Adler NE and Newman K (2002), "Socioeconomic disparities in health: pathways and policies", Health affairs. Vol. 21(2), pp. 60-76. Project HOPE-The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc..

Albeaik S, Kaltenberg M, Alsaleh M and Hidalgo CA (2017), "Measuring the Knowledge Intensity of Economies with an Improved Measure of Economic Complexity", arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.05826.

Allesina S and Tang S (2012), "Stability criteria for complex ecosystems", Nature. Vol. 483(7388), pp. 205. Nature Publishing Group.

Alleyne GA and Cohen D (2002), "The Report of Working Group I of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health", WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, April.

Almeida-Neto M, Guimaraes P, Guimarães PR, Loyola RD and Ulrich W (2008), "A consistent metric for nestedness analysis in ecological systems: reconciling concept and measurement", Oikos. Vol. 117(8), pp. 1227-1239. Wiley Online Library.

Arellano M and Bond S (1991), "Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations", The review of economic studies. Vol. 58(2), pp. 277-297. Wiley-Blackwell.

Balland P-A (2012), "Proximity and the Evolution of Collaboration Networks: Evidence from Research and Development Projects within the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Industry", Regional Studies. Vol. 46(6), pp. 741-756. Routledge.

Balland P-A and Rigby D (2017), "The Geography of Complex Knowledge", Economic Geography. Vol. 93(1), pp. 1-23.

Barlow R and Vissandjee B (1999), "Determinants of national life expectancy", Canadian Journal of Development Studies/Revue canadienne d'études du développement. Vol. 20(1), pp. 9-29. Taylor & Francis.

Bascompte J, Jordano P, Melián CJ and Olesen JM (2003), "The nested assembly of plant--animal mutualistic networks", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 100(16), pp. 9383-9387. National Acad Sciences.

Bianchine PJ and Russo TA (1992), "The role of epidemic infectious diseases in the discovery of America", In Allergy and Asthma Proceedings. Vol. 13(5), pp. 225.

Birchenall JA (2007), "Economic Development and the Escape from High Mortality", World Development. Vol. 35(4), pp. 543 - 568.

Bleakley H (2010), "Health, human capital, and development", Annu. Rev. Econ.. Vol. 2(1), pp. 283-310. Annual Reviews.

Bloom DE, Canning D and Sevilla J (2005), "Health and economic growth: reconciling the micro and macro evidence", Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Working Papers. Vol. 42

Bloom DE, Sachs JD, Collier P and Udry C (1998), "Geography, demography, and economic growth in Africa", Brookings papers on economic activity. Vol. 1998(2), pp. 207-295. JSTOR.

Braveman PA, Cubbin C, Egerter S, Williams DR and Pamuk E (2010), "Socioeconomic disparities in health in the United States: what the patterns tell us", American journal of public health. Vol. 100(S1), pp. S186-S196. American Public Health Association.

Brunekreef B and Holgate ST (2002), "Air pollution and health", The lancet. Vol. 360(9341), pp. 1233-1242. Elsevier.

Bustos S, Gomez C, Hausmann R and Hidalgo CA (2012), "The dynamics of nestedness predicts the evolution of industrial ecosystems", PloS one. Vol. 7(11), pp. e49393. Public Library of Science.

Caldarelli G, Cristelli M, Gabrielli A, Pietronero L, Scala A and Tacchella A (2012), "A network analysis of countries' export flows: firm grounds for the building blocks of the economy", PloS one. Vol. 7(10), pp. e47278. Public Library of Science.

Chang C-P and Lee C-C (2010), "Globalization and economic growth: A political economy analysis for OECD countries", Global Economic Review. Vol. 39(2), pp. 151-173. Taylor & Francis.

Chaudhuri KN (1985), "Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean: an economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750" Cambridge University Press.

Chay KY and Greenstone M (2003), "The impact of air pollution on infant mortality: evidence from geographic variation in pollution shocks induced by a recession", The quarterly journal of economics. Vol. 118(3), pp. 1121-1167. MIT Press.

Collaborators TG2015O (2017), "Health Effects of Overweight and Obesity in 195 countries over 25 Years", the New England Journal of medecine. Vol. 377(1), pp. 13-27.

Collaborators TG2016D (2018), "Global, regional, and national burden of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016", the Lancet Neurology.

Crémieux P-Y, Ouellette P and Pilon C (1999), "Health care spending as determinants of health outcomes", Health economics. Vol. 8(7), pp. 627-639. Wiley Online Library.

Cristelli M, Gabrielli A, Tacchella A, Caldarelli G and Pietronero L (2013), "Measuring the intangibles: A metrics for the economic complexity of countries and products", PloS one. Vol. 8(8), pp. e70726. Public Library of Science.

Cristelli M, Tacchella A and Pietronero L (2015), "The heterogeneous dynamics of economic complexity", PloS one. Vol. 10(2), pp. e0117174. Public Library of Science.

Dijkstra EW (1959), "A note on two problems in connexion with graphs", Numerische mathematik. Vol. 1(1), pp. 269-271. Springer.

Dreher A (2006), "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization", Applied economics. Vol. 38(10), pp. 1091-1110. Taylor & Francis.

Driscoll T, Takala J, Steenland K, Corvalan C and Fingerhut M (2005), "Review of estimates of the global burden of injury and illness due to occupational exposures", American journal of industrial medicine. Vol. 48(6), pp. 491-502. Wiley Online Library.

Drummond MF, Sculpher MJ, Claxton K, Stoddart GL and Torrance GW (2015), "Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes" Oxford university press.

Duttagupta R, Ruiz SL, Leyva AM and Tavares MM (2018), "Globalization and Inclusive Growth: Can They Go Hand in Hand in Developing Countries?", In Getting Globalization Right. , pp. 265-288. Springer.

Easterlin RA (1999), "How beneficent is the market? A look at the modern history of mortality", European Review of Economic History. Vol. 3(3), pp. 257-294. Cambridge University Press.

Ezzati M, Vander Hoorn S, Lawes CM, Leach R, James WPT, Lopez AD, Rodgers A and Murray CJ (2005), "Rethinking the ``diseases of affluence'' paradigm: global patterns of nutritional risks in relation to economic development", PLoS medicine. Vol. 2(5), pp. e133. Public Library of Science.

Feldman JJ, Makuc DM, Kleinman JC and Cornoni-Huntley J (1989), "National trends in educational differentials in mortality", American Journal of Epidemiology. Vol. 129(5), pp. 919-933. Oxford University Press.

Felipe J (2012), "Inclusive Growth, Full Employment, and Structural Change: Implications and Policies for Developing Asia" Anthem Press.

Fogel RW (2004), "The escape from hunger and premature death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World" Cambridge University Press.

Fogel RW (1990), "The conquest of high mortality and hunger in Europe and America: Timing and mechanisms". Thesis at: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Folland S, Goodman AC, Stano M and others (2007), "The economics of health and health care" Vol. 6 Pearson Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Friedman BM (2006), "The moral consequences of economic growth", Society. Vol. 43(2), pp. 15-22. Springer.

Gallup JL and Sachs JD (2001), "The economic burden of malaria", The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene. Vol. 64(1\_suppl), pp. 85-96. ASTMH.

Garas A, Rozenblat C and Schweitzer F (2019), "Economic Specialization and the Nested Bipartite Network of City-Firm Relations", In Multiplex and Multilevel Networks. , pp. 74 - 83. Oxford University Press.

GBD (2016), "Global Burden of Disease Study: Results.", Seattle, United States: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Available from http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool.

Glasgow RE, Vogt TM and Boles SM (1999), "Evaluating the public health impact of health promotion interventions: the RE-AIM framework.", American journal of public health. Vol. 89(9), pp. 1322-1327. American Public Health Association.

Gollin D, Parente S and Rogerson R (2002), "The role of agriculture in development", American Economic Review. Vol. 92(2), pp. 160-164.

Gözgör G and Can M (2017), "Causal linkages among the product diversification of exports, economic globalization and economic growth", Review of Development Economics. Vol. 21(3), pp. 888-908. Wiley Online Library.

Grossman M (2006), "Education and nonmarket outcomes", Handbook of the Economics of Education. Vol. 1, pp. 577-633. Elsevier.

Gupta R (2006), "Rethinking diseases of affluence; coronary heart disease in developing countries", South Asian Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Vol. 10(2), pp. 65-78.

Guralnik JM and Kaplan GA (1989), "Predictors of healthy aging: prospective evidence from the Alameda County study.", American journal of public health. Vol. 79(6), pp. 703-708. American Public Health Association.

Gurgul H and Lach Ł (2014), "Globalization and economic growth: Evidence from two decades of transition in CEE", Economic Modelling. Vol. 36, pp. 99-107. Elsevier.

Hamoudi AA, Sachs JD and others (1999), "Economic consequences of health status: a review of the evidence". Thesis at: Center for International Development at Harvard University.

Hansen J (2001), "Increased breast cancer risk among women who work predominantly at night", Epidemiology. Vol. 12(1), pp. 74-77. LWW.

Hartmann D, Guevara MR, Jara-Figueroa C, Aristarán M and Hidalgo CA (2017), "Linking Economic Complexity, Institutions, and Income Inequality", World Development. Vol. 93, pp. 75-93. Elsevier.

Hausmann R and Hidalgo CA (2011), "The network structure of economic output", Journal of Economic Growth. Vol. 16(4), pp. 309-342. Springer.

Hausmann R, Hidalgo CA, Bustos S, Coscia M, Simoes A and Yildirim MA (2014), "The atlas of economic complexity: Mapping paths to prosperity" Mit Press.

Hausmann R, Hwang J and Rodrik D (2007), "What you export matters", Journal of economic growth. Vol. 12(1), pp. 1-25. Springer.

Hausmann R and Klinger B (2006), "Structural transformation and patterns of comparative advantage in the product space"

Herrendorf B, Rogerson R and Valentinyi Á (2014), "Growth and structural transformation", In Handbook of economic growth. Vol. 2, pp. 855-941. Elsevier.

Hidalgo CA and Hausmann R (2009), "The building blocks of economic complexity", proceedings of the national academy of sciences. Vol. 106(26), pp. 10570-10575. National Acad Sciences.

Hidalgo CA, Klinger B, Barabási A-L and Hausmann R (2007), "The product space conditions the development of nations", Science. Vol. 317(5837), pp. 482-487. American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Holgate ST, Koren HS, Samet JM and Maynard RL (1999), "Air pollution and health" Elsevier.

Hoy D, March L, Brooks P, Blyth F, Woolf A, Bain C, Williams G, Smith E, Vos T, Barendregt J and others (2014), "The global burden of low back pain: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study", Annals of the rheumatic diseases. Vol. 73(6), pp. 968-974. BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.

Hoy D, March L, Brooks P, Woolf A, Blyth F, Vos T and Buchbinder R (2010), "Measuring the global burden of low back pain", Best practice & research Clinical rheumatology. Vol. 24(2), pp. 155-165. Elsevier.

Kampa M and Castanas E (2008), "Human health effects of air pollution", Environmental pollution. Vol. 151(2), pp. 362-367. Elsevier.

Künzli N, Kaiser R, Medina S, Studnicka M, Chanel O, Filliger P, Herry M, Horak Jr F, Puybonnieux-Texier V, Quénel P and others (2000), "Public-health impact of outdoor and traffic-related air pollution: a European assessment", The Lancet. Vol. 356(9232), pp. 795-801. Elsevier.

Laitner J (2000), "Structural change and economic growth", The Review of Economic Studies. Vol. 67(3), pp. 545-561. Wiley-Blackwell.

Lange S and Vollmer S (2017), "The effect of economic development on population health: a review of the empirical evidence.", British medical bulletin. Vol. 121(1)

Lapatinas A (2019), "The effect of the Internet on economic sophistication: An empirical analysis", Economics Letters. Vol. 174, pp. 35-38. Elsevier.

Lapatinas A and Litina A (2018), "Intelligence and economic sophistication", Empirical Economics., Jun, 2018.

Liu K, Cedres LB, Stamler J, Dyer A, Stamler R, Nanas S, Berkson DM, Paul O, Lepper M, Lindberg HA and others (1982), "Relationship of education to major risk factors and death from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular diseases and all causes, Findings of three Chicago epidemiologic studies.", Circulation. Vol. 66(6), pp. 1308-1314. American Heart Association, Inc..

Lorentzen P, McMillan J and Wacziarg R (2008), "Death and development", Journal of economic growth. Vol. 13(2), pp. 81-124. Springer.

Mackenbach JP (1991), "Health care expenditure and mortality from amenable conditions in the European Community", Health policy. Vol. 19(2-3), pp. 245-255. Elsevier.

Mankiw NG, Romer D and Weil DN (1992), "A contribution to the empirics of economic growth", The quarterly journal of economics. Vol. 107(2), pp. 407-437. MIT Press.

McKenzie JF, Neiger BL and Thackeray R (2005), "Planning, implementing, and evaluating health promotion programs: A primer" Pearson/Benjamin Cummings San Francisco.

McNeill WH (1998), "Plagues and peoples" Anchor.

Mirowsky J and Ross CE (1998), "Education, personal control, lifestyle and health: A human capital hypothesis", Research on aging. Vol. 20(4), pp. 415-449. Sage Publications Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA.

Murray CJ, Lopez AD, Organization WH and others (1996), "The global burden of disease: a comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries, and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020: summary" Geneva: World Health Organization.

Nelson DI, Concha-Barrientos M, Driscoll T, Steenland K, Fingerhut M, Punnett L, Prüss-Üstün A, Leigh J and Corvalan C (2005), "The global burden of selected occupational diseases and injury risks: Methodology and summary", American journal of industrial medicine. Vol. 48(6), pp. 400-418. Wiley Online Library.

Ngai LR and Pissarides CA (2007), "Structural change in a multisector model of growth", American economic review. Vol. 97(1), pp. 429-443.

Nixon J and Ulmann P (2006), "The relationship between health care expenditure and health outcomes", The European Journal of Health Economics. Vol. 7(1), pp. 7-18. Springer.

Pampel FC, Krueger PM and Denney JT (2010), "Socioeconomic disparities in health behaviors", Annual review of sociology. Vol. 36, pp. 349-370. Annual Reviews.

Park RM, Bailer AJ, Stayner LT, Halperin W and Gilbert SJ (2002), "An alternate characterization of hazard in occupational epidemiology: Years of life lost per years worked", American journal of industrial medicine. Vol. 42(1), pp. 1-10. Wiley Online Library.

Post JM and Robins RS (1995), "When illness strikes the leader: The dilemma of the captive king" Yale University Press.

Preston SH (1975), "The changing relation between mortality and level of economic development", Population studies. Vol. 29(2), pp. 231-248. Taylor & Francis.

Prince M (2011), "The global burden of mental disorder in Oxford Textbook of Community Mental Health" Oxford University Press.

Punnett L, Prüss-Ütün A, Nelson DI, Fingerhut MA, Leigh J, Tak S and Phillips S (2005), "Estimating the global burden of low back pain attributable to combined occupational exposures", American journal of industrial medicine. Vol. 48(6), pp. 459-469. Wiley Online Library.

Reddy KS and Yusuf S (1998), "Emerging epidemic of cardiovascular disease in developing countries", Circulation. Vol. 97(6), pp. 596-601. Am Heart Assoc.

Rodrik D (2006), "What's so special about China's exports?", China & World Economy. Vol. 14(5), pp. 1-19. Wiley Online Library.

Ross CE and Wu C-l (1995), "The links between education and health", American sociological review. , pp. 719-745. JSTOR.

Saviotti PP and Frenken K (2008), "Export variety and the economic performance of countries", Journal of Evolutionary Economics. Vol. 18(2), pp. 201-218. Springer.

Seshamani M and Gray A (2004), "Ageing and health-care expenditure: the red herring argument revisited", Health economics. Vol. 13(4), pp. 303-314. Wiley Online Library.

Sherman IW (2007), "Twelve diseases that changed our world" (614.4 S5) ASM Press Washington DC.

Smith JP (1999), "Healthy bodies and thick wallets: the dual relation between health and economic status", Journal of Economic perspectives. Vol. 13(2), pp. 145-166.

Steckel RH (1999), "Industrialization and health in historical perspective".

Steckel RH and Rose JC (2002), "The backbone of history: health and nutrition in the Western Hemisphere" Vol. 2 Cambridge University Press.

Steenland K, Burnett C, Lalich N, Ward E and Hurrell J (2003), "Dying for work: the magnitude of US mortality from selected causes of death associated with occupation", American journal of industrial medicine. Vol. 43(5), pp. 461-482. Wiley Online Library.

Stock J and Yogo M (2005), "Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression", In Identification and Inference for Econometric Models. New York , pp. 80-108. Cambridge University Press.

Szreter S (2004), "Industrialization and health", British Medical Bulletin. Vol. 69(1), pp. 75-86. Oxford University Press.

Tacchella A, Cristelli M, Caldarelli G, Gabrielli A and Pietronero L (2013), "Economic complexity: conceptual grounding of a new metrics for global competitiveness", Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. Vol. 37(8), pp. 1683-1691. Elsevier.

Taylor RB (2016), "White coat tales: Medicine's heroes, heritage, and misadventures" Springer.

Vlassoff C (2007), "Gender differences in determinants and consequences of health and illness", Journal of health, population, and nutrition. Vol. 25(1), pp. 47. BioMed Central.

Werblow A, Felder S and Zweifel P (2007), "Population ageing and health care expenditure: a school of `red herrings'?", Health economics. Vol. 16(10), pp. 1109-1126. Wiley Online Library.

Whitlock EP, Orleans CT, Pender N and Allan J (2002), "Evaluating primary care behavioral counseling interventions: an evidence-based approach", American journal of preventive medicine. Vol. 22(4), pp. 267-284. Elsevier.

Wolfe BL (1986), "Health status and medical expenditures: is there a link?", Social Science & Medicine. Vol. 22(10), pp. 993-999. Elsevier.

Woodward M, Shewry MC, Smith WCS and Tunstall-Pedoe H (1992), "Social status and coronary heart disease: results from the Scottish Heart Health Study", Preventive medicine. Vol. 21(1), pp. 136-148. Elsevier.

Yusuf S, Reddy S, Ôunpuu S and Anand S (2001), "Global burden of cardiovascular diseases: part I: general considerations, the epidemiologic transition, risk factors, and impact of urbanization", Circulation. Vol. 104(22), pp. 2746-2753. Am Heart Assoc.

Zahm SH and Blair A (2003), "Occupational cancer among women: where have we been and where are we going?", American journal of industrial medicine. Vol. 44(6), pp. 565-575. Wiley Online Library.

Zweifel P, Felder S and Meiers M (1999), "Ageing of population and health care expenditure: a red herring?", Health economics. Vol. 8(6), pp. 485-496. Wiley Online Library.