“…6 The original health deficit model by Dalgaard and Strulik (2014) focussed on the relationship between income and life expectancy. The framework has been extended and applied to various health economic problems like the historical evolution of years spent in retirement (Dalgaard and Strulik, 2017), the effects of health care rationing on life expectancy (Boehm et al, 2021), health and welfare effects of pension reforms in presence of a socioeconomic health gradient (Grossmann et al, 2021), addiction and self-control (Strulik, 2018(Strulik, , 2019a, and the life expectancy gaps across gender and marriage status (Schünemann et al, 2017a(Schünemann et al, , 2020. However, the literature has so far ignored how the life course of infections influences the development of chronic health deficits and how pre-existing chronic conditions affect the susceptibility to infections.…”