Sadique M Zia
Economics Department, City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, UK.
Emerg Themes Epidemiol. 2006 Sep 26;3:12. doi: 10.1186/1742-7622-3-12.
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 intervention compared to the free choice outcome in vaccination, and this article provides a brief discussion on this issue. It can be summarised that individuals' incentives to vaccination and accordingly their behavioural responses can greatly influence public policy's pursuit to control disease transmission, and compulsory (or subsidised) vaccination policy without incorporating such behavioural responses will not be able to achieve the best social outcome.
个人在疫苗接种方面的自由选择并不能保证社会最优，因为个人的决策基于不完美信息，且疫苗接种决策涉及正外部性。强制接种疫苗或补贴接种疫苗的公共政策旨在使总私人需求更接近社会最优。然而，与疫苗接种中的自由选择结果相比，公共干预的有效性存在争议，本文就此问题进行简要讨论。可以总结的是，个人接种疫苗的动机以及相应的行为反应会极大地影响公共政策控制疾病传播的追求，而不考虑这种行为反应的强制（或补贴）疫苗接种政策将无法实现最佳社会结果。
