Plain English Summary

COVID-19 has had a great impact on people’s health, as well as their education and general wellbeing.  It has also impacted in the wider economy.  Disease spread models have been key to provide information on disease control measures. COVID-19 spread models can predict the direct impacts of the disease on health for different measures. However, it is not clear if these models have also included broader impacts on health, wellbeing, and the wider economy.

Our project reviewed studies that tried to combine disease spread and economic models to assess the effects of a variety of disease control measures. We found that few studies took into account the broader impacts of UK COVID-19 measures. Three studies focused only on the health of individuals, with and without the disease. Four other models looked at health and economic outcomes (for example, wages) for people infected with COVID-19 but not other effects or the overall economy. The most complex analyses combined disease spread models with economic models. Common shortcomings of the studies were the lack of detail on what the measures consisted of and not sufficiently exploring the uncertainties affecting results.

We concluded that choosing the right model to guide decisions needs consideration of relevant effects, such as the impacts of interest, the sectors affected and the chains of cause and effects. In brief, better integration of disease spread and economic modelling would better inform COVID-19 measures.