A Demand Model of Influenza Vaccine in a Heterogeneous Population

In this paper, we develop a demand model for influenza vaccine. When the vaccination is not compulsory, exploration of demand mechanism and total demand anticipation, help the governments better organize their efforts and adopt more effective measures to contain influenza outbreak in advance of influenza season. In this research, the population is divided into two classes. Pre 65 years old class and over 65-year-old class. Current influenza vaccines have different effectiveness on each age class. We build a game theoretic demand model for each age class based on utilities of individuals. Utilities of individuals is a function of the vaccine effectiveness, price, chance of getting infected, estimated cost of infection and a random element specific to each individual. Since getting vaccinated for an individual exerts positive externalities on the others, the decision of individuals is not independent of each other.