title: Chapter 5. Economic benefits of health.
abstract: The relation of health to economic development is briefly reviewed with reference to the literature on the subject. Emphasis is placed on the concept of health as an investment in the development process. The mechanism of economic benefits is analysed through an examination of the effect of public health programmes on the availability and productivity of labour and capital and on population growth. The relevance of disability, impairment, and death, as well as that of growth and discount parameters for estimating the economic benefits of health, is also discussed. The problems of an adequate monetary index for estimating the benefits and of a suitable procedure for computing their present value are considered. The calculation of the present value of future earnings, with per caput gross national product as the estimator, is considered an adequate method. An approach to estimating the parameters of economic benefits obtainable from tuberculosis control in the Korean context is briefly outlined.