Prevention or treatment? The case of malaria

- A model of household preventive behaviors in response to malaria prevalence.
- A relatively low price of treatment reduces prevention.
- A relatively high price of treatment does not affect preventive behaviors locally.

We present a simple theoretical model of household preventive behavior in response to malaria prevalence. The novelty is to include a trade-off between prevention and treatment in an otherwise standard epidemiological model of disease transmission, which depends on the relative price of treatment with respect to prevention. A relatively low price of treatment reduces prevention.