The Limits of Bed Nets, Markets, and Communities

This chapter applies the framework on collective action and mosquito control to better understand the efficacy of bed nets, distribution campaigns, and community involvement. Each of these public health tools is important way to limit exposure to mosquitos, but scholars and public health officials should recognize the incentives people face, which might blunt such tools. Such incentives depend importantly on marginal values people have for a bed net. Moreover, each of these tools depends on underlying economic and social institutions like markets, agglomeration effects, and social norms. Markets for bed nets are effective ways of providing nets to people who value them, even though they might be weak or heavily burdened by regulations, taxes, and tariffs. Communities might also be helpful as they foster social norms and self-governance and pool resources, which might encourage bed net usage.