Lifetime costs of overweight and obesity in Italy
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Feb 6;53:101366. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101366. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTWe use longitudinal electronic clinical data on a large representative sample of the Italian population to estimate the lifetime profile costs of different BMI classes - normal weight, overweight, and obese (I, II, and III) - in a primary care setting. Our research reveals that obese patients generate the highest cost differential throughout their lives compared to normal weight patients. Moreover, we show that overweight individuals spend less than those with normal weight, primarily due to reduced expenditures beginning in ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 14, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Vincenzo Atella Federico Belotti Matilde Giaccherini Gerardo Medea Antonio Nicolucci Paolo Sbraccia Andrea Piano Mortari Source Type: research
The effect of women's decision-making on child nutritional outcomes in South Africa
This study investigated the causal effect of women's decision-making on child nutritional outcomes using a panel dataset from the South African National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS) from 2014/15-2017. The child's nutritional outcomes comprised three anthropometric measurements, which included weight-for-height, weight-for-age, and height-for-age. The study used variables, which include daily expenditure, large purchases, where children attended school, who lived with the family, and where the household lived, to create a decision-making index using Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA). A control function approach (CFA) w...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 13, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Olanrewaju Adewole Adediran Source Type: research
Occupational differences in the effects of retirement on hospitalizations for mental illness among female workers: Evidence from administrative data in China
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Feb 5;53:101367. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101367. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTRetirement, a major transition in the life course, may affect many aspects of retirees' well-being, including health and health care utilization. Leveraging differential statutory retirement age (SRA) by occupation for China's urban female workers, we provide some of the first evidence on the causal effect of retirement on hospitalizations attributable to mental illness and its heterogeneity. To address endogeneity in retirement decisions, we take advantage of exogeneity of the differing SRA cut-offs for blue-collar (age 50) ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 10, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Tianyu Wang Ruochen Sun Jody L Sindelar Xi Chen Source Type: research
A tale of lockdown policies on the transmission of COVID-19 within and between Chinese cities: A study based on heterogeneous treatment effect
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Feb 5;53:101365. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101365. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTDuring the early outbreak phase of COVID-19 in China, lockdowns prevailed as the only available policy tools to mitigate the spread of infection. To evaluate the impact of lockdown policies in the context of the first phase of COVID-19 pandemic, we leverage data on daily confirmed cases per million people and related characteristics of a large set of cities. The study analyzed 369 Chinese cities, among which 188 implemented lockdowns of varying severity levels from January 23 to March 31, 2020. We use nationwide Baidu Mobilit...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 10, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Jingjing Li Chu Zhuang Wei Zou Source Type: research
Rational self-medication
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Jan 28;53:101350. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101350. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTWe develop a model of rational self-medication in which individuals use potentially dangerous or addictive substances (e.g., alcohol) to manage symptoms of illness (e.g., depression) outside of formal medical care. A model implication is that the emergence of better treatments reduces incentives to self-medicate. To investigate, we use forty years of longitudinal data from the Framingham Heart Study and leverage the exogenous introduction of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). We demonstrate an economically mean...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 9, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Michael E Darden Nicholas W Papageorge Source Type: research
Income insecurity and mental health in pandemic times
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Jan 30;53:101351. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101351. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThis paper contributes to the literature on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on mental health by providing novel evidence of its interaction with labor market conditions and the long-term persistence of these effects. We run four waves of a large-scale representative survey in Spain between April 2020 and April 2022, and benchmark our data against a decade of pre-pandemic information. We document an increase in the share of individuals reporting depressive feelings from 16% prior to the pandemic to 46% in April 2020. We s...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 2, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Dirk Foremny Pilar Sorribas-Navarro Judit Vall Castell ó Source Type: research
Peer effects in weight-related behaviours of young people: A systematic literature review
In conclusion, this synthesis emphasises the need for further research into the underlying mechanisms on peer effects to better inform policy-makers in designing effective policies for improving weight-related behaviours in young people.PMID:38301414 | DOI:10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101354 (Source: Economics and Human Biology)
Source: Economics and Human Biology - February 1, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Nathalie M üller Francesco Fallucchi Marc Suhrcke Source Type: research
The illness trap: The impact of disability benefits on willingness to receive HCV treatment
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Jan;52:101352. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101352. Epub 2024 Jan 17.ABSTRACTHealth care is assumed to be a primary good, implying that patients should always demand or accept treatments that may enhance their life expectancy and quality of life, especially if the risks associated with the treatment are low. We argue that, especially in countries with a well-developed welfare state, treating an invalidating condition may lead to opportunity costs in terms of reduced disability allowances that may represent a barrier to treatment for low-income individuals. We test this hypothesis by applying a recursive biva...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 26, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Marta Giachello Lucia Leporatti Rosella Levaggi Marcello Montefiori Source Type: research
Assessing the effectiveness of international government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Jan;52:101353. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101353. Epub 2024 Jan 18.ABSTRACTThis paper examines the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical measures adopted by governments to control the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a Panel VAR model for the OECD countries, we test for Granger causality between the 7-day cumulative incidence, mortality rate, and government response indexes. Granger-type statistics reveal evidence that the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the measures taken by governments. However, limited or nonexistent evidence supports the reverse situation. This suggests that govern...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 23, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: H éctor López-Mendoza Mar ía A González-Álvarez Antonio Monta ñés Source Type: research
Birth order and children's health and learning outcomes in India
The objectives of this paper are to: (i) assess the association of a child's birth order with height (ii) test if the association of birth order with height changes with the degree of son preference (iii) analyse the relationship between birth order and educational outcomes of children. Our results suggest that (i) the height-for-age z score is negatively associated with the birth order of the child (ii) the negative association of birth order with height is stronger for mothers who have a moderate or high degree of son preference, especially when children have an older brother (iii) maternal characteristics such as educat...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 18, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Arjita Chandna Priya Bhagowalia Source Type: research
Fertility and immigration: Do immigrant mothers hand down their fertility pattern to the next generation? Evidence from Norway
We examined whether the fertility pattern of immigrant mothers is handed down to the next generation. Our analyses were carried out on population register data. These data contained information on all immigrants to Norway from 123 countries during the period 1935-1995. We examined whether there was a relationship between the fertility rate in the country of origin and the number of children for generations 1.5 and 2 in Norway. We estimated three models: fixed effects for country of origin, fixed effects for region, and no fixed effects. The three specifications yielded estimates with overlapping confidence intervals. We in...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 10, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Jostein Grytten Irene Skau Rune S ørensen Source Type: research
COVID-19, deaths at home and end-of-life cancer care
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Jan;52:101338. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101338. Epub 2023 Dec 19.ABSTRACTDuring the COVID-19 pandemic there was a period of high excess deaths from cancer at home as opposed to in hospitals or in care homes. In this paper we aim to explore whether healthcare utilisation trajectories of cancer patients in the final months of life during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal any potential unmet healthcare need. We use English hospital records linked to data on all deaths in and out of hospital which identifies the cause and location of death. Our analysis shows that during the periods of peak COVID-19 caseload, pat...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - January 10, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Anastasia Arabadzhyan Katja Gra šič Peter Sivey Source Type: research
Changing the mindsets? Education and the intergenerational spread of tolerance for physical violence against women in Zimbabwe
Econ Hum Biol. 2024 Jan;52:101345. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101345. Epub 2023 Dec 21.ABSTRACTWe investigate the relationship between childhood exposure to interparental violence and adult tolerance for violent beliefs against women. For individuals who have witnessed parental violence in childhood, our analysis suggests a 14.3-15.2 percentage point (pp) increase in tolerance, highlighting the transmission of violent beliefs across generations. Leveraging Zimbabwe's 1980 education reform as a natural experiment through a regression discontinuity design, we explore the potential of increased education to disrupt this intergen...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - December 31, 2023 Category: Biology Authors: Marshall Makate Chamunorwa Nyamuranga Source Type: research
Changing the mindsets? Education and the intergenerational spread of tolerance for physical violence against women in Zimbabwe
Econ Hum Biol. 2023 Dec 21;52:101345. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101345. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTWe investigate the relationship between childhood exposure to interparental violence and adult tolerance for violent beliefs against women. For individuals who have witnessed parental violence in childhood, our analysis suggests a 14.3-15.2 percentage point (pp) increase in tolerance, highlighting the transmission of violent beliefs across generations. Leveraging Zimbabwe's 1980 education reform as a natural experiment through a regression discontinuity design, we explore the potential of increased education to disrupt this ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - December 31, 2023 Category: Biology Authors: Marshall Makate Chamunorwa Nyamuranga Source Type: research
Changing the mindsets? Education and the intergenerational spread of tolerance for physical violence against women in Zimbabwe
Econ Hum Biol. 2023 Dec 21;52:101345. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101345. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTWe investigate the relationship between childhood exposure to interparental violence and adult tolerance for violent beliefs against women. For individuals who have witnessed parental violence in childhood, our analysis suggests a 14.3-15.2 percentage point (pp) increase in tolerance, highlighting the transmission of violent beliefs across generations. Leveraging Zimbabwe's 1980 education reform as a natural experiment through a regression discontinuity design, we explore the potential of increased education to disrupt this ...
Source: Economics and Human Biology - December 31, 2023 Category: Biology Authors: Marshall Makate Chamunorwa Nyamuranga Source Type: research
