Interventions to reduce childhood obesity entail ethical considerations. Although a rationale exists for government to intervene in a way that limits individual rights while protecting the public's health, a clear economic rationale also exists. The markets for goods and services that contribute to obesity are characterized by multiple failures that create an economic rationale for government t...

Individuals' free choices in vaccination do not guarantee social optimum since individuals' decision is based on imperfect information, and vaccination decision involves positive externality. Public policy of compulsory vaccination or subsidised vaccination aims to increase aggregate private demand closer to social optimum. However, there is controversy over the effectiveness of public interven...

Philosophical theories of collective action have produced a number of alternative accounts of the rationality and morality of self-interest and altruism. These have obvious applications to communicable disease control, the avoidance of antibiotic resistance, the responsibility of healthcare professionals to patients with serious communicable diseases, and the sharing of personal data in epidemi...

The problem of distributing a given amount of a divisible good among a set of agents which may have individual entitlements is considered here. A solution to this problem, called the Rights–Egalitarian Solution is proposed. This allocation rule divides equally among the agents the difference between the aggregate entitlements and the amount of the good available. A relevant feature of the analy...

Received 7 September 2006 Revised 30 November 2006 Accepted 6 December 2006 Unhealthy lifestyle contributes significantly to the burden of disease. Scarce medical resources that could alternatively be spent on interventions to prevent or cure sufferings for which no one is to blame, are spent on prevention or treatment of (the risk of) disease that could be avoided through individual lifestyle ...