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Adaptive Policies to Balance Health Benefits and Economic Costs of Physical Distancing Interventions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Reza Yaesoubi

    (Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA)

  • Joshua Havumaki

    (Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA)

  • Melanie H. Chitwood

    (Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA)

  • Nicolas A. Menzies

    (Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA)

  • Gregg Gonsalves

    (Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA)

  • Joshua A. Salomon

    (Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA)

  • A. David Paltiel

    (Department of Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA)

  • Ted Cohen

    (Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA)

Abstract

Policy makers need decision tools to determine when to use physical distancing interventions to maximize the control of COVID-19 while minimizing the economic and social costs of these interventions. We describe a pragmatic decision tool to characterize adaptive policies that combine real-time surveillance data with clear decision rules to guide when to trigger, continue, or stop physical distancing interventions during the current pandemic. In model-based experiments, we find that adaptive policies characterized by our proposed approach prevent more deaths and require a shorter overall duration of physical distancing than alternative physical distancing policies. Our proposed approach can readily be extended to more complex models and interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Reza Yaesoubi & Joshua Havumaki & Melanie H. Chitwood & Nicolas A. Menzies & Gregg Gonsalves & Joshua A. Salomon & A. David Paltiel & Ted Cohen, 2021. "Adaptive Policies to Balance Health Benefits and Economic Costs of Physical Distancing Interventions during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 41(4), pages 386-392, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:41:y:2021:i:4:p:386-392
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X21990371
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Zachary Barnett-Howell & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2020. "The Benefits and Costs of Social Distancing in Rich and Poor Countries," Papers 2004.04867, arXiv.org.
    2. Michael Greenstone & Vishan Nigam, 2020. "Does Social Distancing Matter?," Working Papers 2020-26, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    3. Stephen C. Newbold & David Finnoff & Linda Thunström & Madison Ashworth & Jason F. Shogren, 2020. "Effects of Physical Distancing to Control COVID-19 on Public Health, the Economy, and the Environment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 705-729, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Quang Dang Nguyen & Mikhail Prokopenko, 2022. "A general framework for optimising cost-effectiveness of pandemic response under partial intervention measures," Papers 2205.08996, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.

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