The Effect of Income Inequality and Residential Segregation on Infectious Diseases Transmission

Since the 1980s, income inequality and residential segregation have increased in industrialized and developing countries. There is a body of literature that hypothesizes and examines the relationship between inequality and segregation on health. However, none of these studies constructs a mathematical model to explain these complex linkages. This project builds a theoretical behavioral model that analyzes the effect of income inequality, neighborhood characteristics, and residential segregation on infectious diseases transmission. Residential segregation and income inequality decrease the community’s health if an individual’s health production function is concave with respect to income and exposure. We also discuss the possibility of a disease trap through the existence of multiple equilibria when disease externalities generate convexities in the health production function. Because a complete set of closed-form solutions to our model does not exist, we analyze our model qualitatively using techniques from Real Analysis.