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Prof. Rodolphe Desbordes
Economics Professor at SKEMA Business School
The COVID-19 virus and its pandemic have brought the management of all types of diseases to the forefront of risks individuals, organizations, and governments look to control. The impact on physical and mental health has been immediately identifiable throughout the pandemic, but perhaps less apparent is the economic impact diseases can have. The outbreak has had a global economic impact. Economies world have felt the economic growth impact during the outbreak of the virus. From the health of the community to the health of the business world, all eyes have been on the impacted economic growth of the pandemic.
Some financial influence will have been commonly felt in most developed countries, with trade routes breaking down or staff being unable to travel. Costs have risen alongside anxieties about health and security. The disease is not often considered a factor in economic growth but the pandemic has caused global impacts that are so dramatic that almost no one can ignore the economic impact of the virus anymore. Even so, the impact on governments and societies, particularly in the developing world, has been less reported during the pandemic.
Closing this gap, Professor of Economics Rodolphe Desbordes, from SKEMA School, has authored a paper, “Spatial dynamics of major infectious diseases outbreaks: A global empirical assessment,” to help understand the economic impact of disease outbreaks.
‘Infectious diseases have now become a hot topic in Economics,’ said Prof. Desbordes.
‘As an applied macroeconomist, I’m interested in very global issues and wanted to carefully model the spatial diffusion of infectious diseases in a globalized world. For various reasons, including data availability, the effects of many diseases were neglected, so I needed databases with long (time) and wide (spatial) coverage to run estimations.’
Search for quality health data led to Prof. Desbordes’ discovery of GIDEON – ‘I was really surprised not to find this information easily available, but I noticed the use of GIDEON in a few other papers. I found GIDEON was the perfect database for the epidemiological project I had in mind.’
The quality of the health data Prof. Desbordes found made it possible to really push his concept to all corners of the globe. ‘I value excellent data on a novel and interesting issue more than anything else, and GIDEON provided that. Data are essential to guide domestic and international policymaking.’
GIDEON is the most comprehensive health database of historical and current infectious disease outbreaks, encompassing 235 countries and territories.
GIDEON renders interactive maps of disease distribution and outbreaks.
GIDEON provides an in-depth analysis of global disease spread. The health database provides information on nearly 26,000 historical outbreaks and cross-border events, 85,000+ surveys, and 23,700+ country-specific notes.
GIDEON is curated by a team of highly regarded medical scientists who are updating the database daily.