Diagnosing foodborne illness: A behavioral analysis of barriers to testing

Public health authorities rely on the timely flow of laboratory results to detect and control food-borne illnesses. At times, social and economic barriers limit individuals’ ability to get needed tests. We demonstrate a simple behavioral approach to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions designed to remove three social and economic barriers to testing individuals with acute diarrheal illness: testing costs, income loss, and inconvenience. We use readily available statistics to rank programs by their cost effectiveness to identify those most worthy of studying in greater detail.