Poverty trap formed by the ecology of infectious diseases

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Vol. 277; no. 1685; pp. 1185 - 1192
• Main Authors: Bonds, Matthew H., Keenan, Donald C., Rohani, Pejman, Sachs, Jeffrey D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England The Royal Society 22.04.2010
• Subjects: Communicable Diseases - economics; Communicable Diseases - epidemiology; Disease models; Disease prevalence rates; Disease transmission; Ecological balance; Ecological modeling; Ecology; Economic models; Economics; Epidemiology; Humans; Income; Income estimates; Infectious Disease; Infectious diseases; Models, Biological; Poverty; Prevalence
• ISSN: 0962-8452; 1471-2954; 1471-2945; 1471-2954
• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1778

While most of the world has enjoyed exponential economic growth, more than one-sixth of the world is today roughly as poor as their ancestors were many generations ago. Widely accepted general explanations for the persistence of such poverty have been elusive and are needed by the international development community. Building on a well-established model of human infectious diseases, we show how formally integrating simple economic and disease ecology models can naturally give rise to poverty traps, where initial economic and epidemiological conditions determine the long-term trajectory of the health and economic development of a society. This poverty trap may therefore be broken by improving health conditions of the population. More generally, we demonstrate that simple human ecological models can help explain broad patterns of modern economic organization.