Department of Economics, College of Social Science, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 704, Taiwan.
Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 704, Taiwan.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 29;20(3):2419. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20032419.
This research examines whether the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) did harm to the population's health through comparing the changes in the life expectancy of Canadians with those of Australians over the period from March 2019 to February 2021 by using a difference-in-differences (DID) estimation method. We found that the pandemic did cause differences in life expectancies between Canada and Australia, probably because of different initial control policies for COVID-19. This study uses the indicator of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) to measure the societal health burden, which was corroborated by estimating temporal productivity loss (TPL) and permanent productivity loss (PPL) based on the human capital approach (HCA) using data from Health Canada. The societal health burden in Canada amounted to 6.493 DALYs per 1000 male persons and 5.316 DALYs per 1000 female persons. The economy's permanent productivity loss was around USD 5.3 billion, while the temporary productivity loss was around USD 3 billion from February 2020 to April 2022. The sum of the above two losses amounted to 0.477% of the GDP in 2019. Swift and decisive decisions at the very early stage of a pandemic can nip contagions in the bud before numbers get out of hand and would be less damaging to people's health and the economy, as seen in Australia, in contrast to what happened in Canada. We thus recommend that such policies plus telecommunication systems in healthcare services be implemented early on to cope with the future outbreak of any emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
本研究通过使用双重差分（DID）估计方法，比较了 2019 年 3 月至 2021 年 2 月期间加拿大和澳大利亚两国人口预期寿命的变化，以评估 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）是否对人群健康造成危害。我们发现，大流行确实导致了加拿大和澳大利亚之间预期寿命的差异，这可能是由于两国对 COVID-19 的初始控制政策不同。本研究使用伤残调整生命年（DALYs）来衡量社会健康负担，并通过使用加拿大卫生部的数据，根据人力资本方法（HCA）估计时间生产力损失（TPL）和永久生产力损失（PPL），对该指标进行了验证。加拿大的社会健康负担为每 1000 名男性 6.493 DALYs，每 1000 名女性 5.316 DALYs。经济的永久性生产力损失约为 53 亿美元，而从 2020 年 2 月到 2022 年 4 月的临时生产力损失约为 30 亿美元。上述两项损失之和占 2019 年 GDP 的 0.477%。在大流行的早期阶段迅速果断地做出决策，可以在疫情失控之前遏制疫情的蔓延，对人们的健康和经济造成的损害较小，这与加拿大形成鲜明对比。因此，我们建议在早期实施此类政策和医疗保健服务中的电信系统，以应对未来任何新发传染病（如 COVID-19）的爆发。
