The Effects of Natural Disasters on the Health Sector in Iran

In the last decades, natural disasters have burdened many economic and physical losses to the countries. After disaster, the level of capital stock decreases strongly and household assets will be at risk seriously, and by decreasing the amount of income and saving, it will lead to lower the levels of welfare. According to the study of the natural disasters that had happened in Iran, earthquake and drought are the main disasters that can affect economies. After disaster happened, government’s expenditure will increase to help victims. While, by an accurate programming to reduce risks before the disaster, the loss will decline dramatically. In this dissertation, by applying computable general equilibrium models, economic effects of earthquake and drought on the macroeconomic variables, health sector and household welfare have been studied. Decreasing in the amount of capital stock and decreasing in the amount of available water are the scenarios that have been investigated in this dissertation. According to the results, both earthquake and drought lead to decline of GDP and also change the production of health sector. Since the consumption, saving and income of household decrease, it can be concluded that the household welfare also declines. The amount of capital in the building sector in comparison with the whole investment is high in Iran. Earthquake is the major reason for buildings to be destroyed, therefore finding an appropriate solution to save the national wealth seems necessary. Then, by presenting a conceptual method, insurance has been introduced as the most effective solutions for facing with losses of disasters, and especially earthquake. By using legal requirements, appropriate and justly pricing for premium and government supports of some groups of the society, the shortage of demand for the earthquake insurance must be solved and by increasing in the liquidity, the insurance industry will be developed. And also, in the long run, earthquake insurance will lead to reinforced and standard building that will lower the losses down as much as possible. For drought, in addition to the insurance, managing water resources accurately should be considered. Studying the consequences of dam constructions, moving or displacement of the rivers, building installations are necessary. In recent years these kinds of actions have severe negative effects on the water resources and ecosystem and lead to drought. Besides studying on the economic efficiency of importing agriculture product is that needs lots of water, is another solution of saving water.