Autori
Salinelli, Ernesto
Manfredi, P.

Titolo
Optimal vaccination choice, vaccination games,and rational exemption: an appraisal
Periodico
Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale 'A. Avogadro' : Facoltà di Economia - Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Metodi Quantitativi "SEMEQ" - Quaderni
Anno: 2009 - Fascicolo: 14 - Pagina iniziale: 1 - Pagina finale: 32

A threat for vaccination policies might be the onset of “rational exemption, i.e. the family’s decision not to vaccinate children after a seemingly rational comparison between the risk of infection and the risk of vaccine side effects. We study the implications of rational exemption by models of vaccination choice. By a simple model of individual choice we first prove the “elimination impossible” result in presence of informed families, i.e. aware of herd immunity, and suggest that limited information might explain patterns of universal vaccination. Next, we investigate vaccination choice in a game-theoretic framework for communities stratified into two groups, “pro” and “anti” vaccinators, having widely different perceived costs of infection and of vaccine side effects. We show under informed families, neither Nash nor Stackelberg behaviour allow elimination, unless “pro-vaccinators” assign no costs to vaccine side effects. Elimination turns out to be possible when cooperation is encouraged by a social planner, provided however he incorporates in the “social loss function” the preferences of antivaccinators only. This allows an interpretation of the current Italian vaccination policy, but suggests that it might not be sustainable in the future.



Testo completo: http://semeq.unipmn.it/files/quaderno%2014%20completo.pdf

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