Incentives to Be Healthy: An Economic Model of Health-related Behaviour

Increasing attention is being paid to the non-health-care influences on population health status. Policy recommendations and emerging from this interest have tended to focus on providing equal opportunity to attain good health. In this sense policies have tended to be ‘enabling’ with little attention paid to the incentives facing individual to adopt the health behavioural patterns. In this paper we develop a model of individual behaviour based on standard economic theory. First order conditions are derived for the optimal level of participation in health- related activities. Particular attention is focused in the impacts of behavioural patterns on future health and the consequences for individual well- being. The literature of other behavioural science is drawn upon to enhance the ability of the model to explain and predict individual behaviour. The predictions are found to be consistent with observations of individual behaviour reported in the literature. The policy implications of the model are discussed. Attention is drawn to the need to understand the heath related behaviour of the victims of poor health as opposed to blaming them for not responding to opportunities to behave in way more conducive to producing health. Otherwise well-intentioned policies aimed at reducing inequalities in health may be counterproductive. If policy makers are interested in changing individual behaviour then it is essential that polices are designed which make such behavioural change in the best interest of the individuals concerned.