Optimal self‐protection and health risk perceptions: Exploring connections between risk theory and the Health Belief Model

Abstract

In this contribution to the longstanding risk theory debate on optimal self‐protection, we aim to enrich the microeconomic modeling of self‐protection, in the wake of Ehrlich and Becker (1972), by exploring the representation of risk perception at the core of the Health Belief Model (HBM), a conceptual framework extremely influential in Public Health studies (Janz and Becker, 1984). In our two‐period model, we highlight the crucial role of risk perception in the individual decision to adopt a preventive behavior toward a generic health risk. We discuss the optimal prevention effort engaged by an agent displaying either imperfect knowledge of the susceptibility (probability of occurrence) or the severity (magnitude of the loss) of a health hazard, or facing uncertainty on these risk components. We assess the impact of risk aversion and prudence on the optimal level of self‐protection, a critical issue in the risk and insurance economic literature, yet often overlooked in HBM studies. Our results pave the way for the design of efficient information instruments to improve health prevention when risk perceptions are biased.

One Health Economics: why and how economics should take on the interdisciplinary challenges of a promising public health paradigm

“…To that end, Public Health scientists have developed conceptual frameworks, such as the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Health Belief Model, which undergird a plethorical body of empirical studies on many health conditions and diseases. The fascinating similarities between these models and the strand of self-protection models in theoretical risk economics are just starting to be explored (25) and promise joint progress on efficient prevention policies. Economists should build on these initial interdisciplinary attempts in order to contribute to multidimensional prevention strategies, including preventive measures on humans and on livestock.…”