Public Goods

Public goods are goods and services characterized by non-rivalry and non-excludability. They are non-rivalrous because one person’s use does not reduce availability or quality for others. They are non-excludable because no one can be prevented from using it, whether they pay for it or not (Stiglitz, 1999). Public goods don’t run out no matter how many people use them, and no one can be left out. They are about shared benefits for everyone. Examples include streetlights, national defence, and clean air. In public health, public goods include vaccination, herd immunity, sanitation, and some forms of healthcare financing (Moon & Omole, 2017).

Public Health

Public health involves protecting and improving the health of entire communities through prevention strategies, not just treating individual patients. This is our missions at BlessWorlrld Foundation International.

In Canada, healthcare and health insurance are publicly funded through taxation and delivered primarily by provincial governments, ensuring universal access (Flood & Thomas, 2021). Certain interventions within healthcare, such as vaccination, go beyond individual benefits and generate positive externalities. These externalities are group benefits that extend to everyone, and the society at large. For example, when most people in a population are vaccinated and immune, the spread of communicable and infectious disease is reduced, protecting everyone, including those who did not get vaccinated. This positive externality and benefit is known as herd immunity- an example of a public good that promotes public health (Fine, Eames, & Heymann, 2011).

Benefits of Public Goods for Public Health

Public goods that promote public heath, such as herd immunity, are important because they reduce sickness and and death, prevent outbreaks, and save costs for healthcare systems. Widespread vaccination or immunization programs have been instrumental in eradicating smallpox, nearly eliminating polio, and dramatically reducing measles mortality (Orenstein & Ahmed, 2017). In this sense, public goods do not just protect populations, they also ensure that health systems are sustainable. However, the actualization of public goods such as herd immunity, requires collective participation. If many individuals refuse to get vaccinated and only enjoy the group benefits of herd immunity, this group immunity can break down, resulting in outbreaks. Therefore, it is important to encourage and if necessary, incentivize individual participation in activities that result in group benefits such as vaccination.

Barriers to Access and Participation

Despite the benefits of vaccination and other public goods, particularly for public health, some barriers can limit equitable access. These include:

Logistics barriers: Long distances and travel times to clinics or limited transportation.

Financial barriers: Costs of travel, time off work, or administrative fees.

Information barriers: Lack of awareness about vaccination schedules and benefits.

Social and cultural barriers: Vaccine hesitancy, lack os support systems, mistrust in institutions, or religious objections (Dubé, Laberge, & MacDonald, 2013).

Policy Solutions and Interventions

Policy solutions and interventions to increase access and participation ensure that public health public goods are equitably distributed. Governments and health systems must go beyond simply providing public goods to promoting access and encouraging participation. Policies should aim to reduce the costs of access and barriers that prevent vaccination. Policies can be developed to:

• Offer free or subsidized transportation to vaccination sites.
• Organize mobile clinics in underserved or remote areas.
• Implement public education campaigns to improve vaccine literacy and explain benefits.
• Build community trust through local engagement, education and partnerships.

These solutions and interventions increase access and align individual behaviour with group benefits, strengthening herd immunity and public health.

Finally, public goods such as herd immunity demonstrate that individual participation, supported by enabling policies, produce benefits for everyone in the society at large.

References

• Dubé, E., Laberge, C., & MacDonald, N. E. (2013). Vaccine hesitancy: An overview. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 9(8), 1763–1773. https://doi.org/10.4161/hv.24657
• Fine, P., Eames, K., & Heymann, D. L. (2011). “Herd immunity”: A rough guide. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 52(7), 911–916. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cir007
• Flood, C. M., & Thomas, B. (2021). Is Canada’s health care system fair? IRPP Insight, 37. https://doi.org/10.13162/insight37
• Moon, S., & Omole, O. (2017). Development assistance for health and the politics of global health governance. The Lancet, 389(10083), 1610–1612. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31001-8
• Orenstein, W. A., & Ahmed, R. (2017). Simply put: Vaccination saves lives. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(16), 4031–4033. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704507114
• Stiglitz, J. E. (1999). Knowledge as a global public good. In I. Kaul, I. Grunberg, & M. Stern (Eds.), Global public goods: International cooperation in the 21st century (pp. 308–325). Oxford University Press