Replication Data for: Concealing Disease: Trade and Travel Barriers and the Timeliness of Outbreak Reporting

Slow outbreak reporting by states is a key challenge to effectively responding to global health emergencies like Zika, Ebola, and H1N1. Current policy focuses on improving domestic outbreak surveillance capacity globally in order to reduce reporting lags. However, governments also face economic and political incentives to conceal outbreaks, and these incentives largely are ignored in policy discussions. In spite of the policy implications for outbreak response, the “capacity” and “will” explanations have not been systematically examined. Analysis of a dataset coding the timeliness of outbreak reporting from 1996-2014 finds evidence that states’ unwillingness to report—rather than just their inability—leads to delayed reporting. The findings suggest that though building surveillance capacity is critical, doing so may not be sufficient to reduce reporting lags. Policy aimed at encouraging rapid reporting must also mitigate the associated economic and political costs.

各国疫情报告延迟，是寨卡（Zika）、埃博拉（Ebola）、甲型H1N1流感（H1N1）等全球突发公共卫生事件有效应对的核心挑战。当前相关政策的核心目标是在全球范围内提升各国国内的疫情监测能力，以缩短报告延迟时长。然而，各国政府亦存在掩盖疫情的经济与政治动机，但此类动机在政策讨论中基本未被纳入考量范畴。尽管这一问题对疫情应对的政策制定具有重要启示，但‘能力’与‘意愿’两种解释维度尚未得到系统性研究。通过对1996年至2014年疫情报告及时性编码数据集的分析，研究证实各国报告延迟的主要诱因是其报告意愿不足，而非仅为监测能力欠缺。研究结果表明，尽管提升监测能力至关重要，但仅靠此举或不足以缩短报告延迟时长；旨在推动快速报告的政策，还需缓解相关的经济与政治成本。