AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 2, July 2023
The Bulletin on Health
Summarizes recent NBER Working Papers pertaining to health topics. It is distributed digitally three times a year and is free.
A sharp increase in “deaths of despair” — deaths from poisonings, suicides, and alcoholic liver disease — occurred in the US in the early 2000s, but the initial rise began a decade earlier for middle-aged Whites. These developments are studied in Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion (NBER Working Paper 30840). In this paper, Tyler Giles, Daniel M. Hungerman, and Tamar Oostrom examine the relationship between the increase in such...
Article
Falling birth rates in the US and other advanced economies have raised questions about the links between economic conditions, government safety nets, and fertility and infant health. In The Cyclicality of Births and Babies’ Health, Revisited: Evidence from Unemployment Insurance (NBER Working Paper 30937), Lisa Dettling and Melissa Kearney find that fertility rates and infant health are influenced by the mother’s financial circumstances during economic downturns....
Article
Annual suicide deaths per 100,000 people in the US increased gradually from 10 in 1950 to 13 in 1970 then experienced a long decline, reaching a trough at 10 in 2000. Between 2000 and 2020, however, the US suicide rate exhibited an upward trend.
Two aspects of this increase are especially notable. The first is its speed. Between 2000 and 2020, the suicide rate rose from 10 per 100,000 to just over 14 — a 40 percent increase in only 20 years, and enough to...
Article
Hope Corman is professor emerita of economics at Rider University, an editor of the journal Review of Economics of the Household, and a widely published researcher of how factors ranging from crime to welfare reform impact the health of children and adults. An NBER Research Associate for more than 40 years, she is affiliated with the Economics of Health Program.
Corman’s early interests were neither health nor economics. But living in New York City as a female...
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Many NBER-affiliated researchers publish some of their health-related findings in journals that preclude pre-publication distribution, and thus do not post them as NBER working papers. This is a partial listing of recent papers in this category by NBER affiliates.
Do PCI Facility Openings and Closures Affect AMI Outcomes Differently in High- vs Average-Capacity Markets?
Shen Y, Krumholz HM, Hsia RY. JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions 16(10), May 2023, pp...
The Bulletin on Health summarizes selected recent NBER Working Papers. It is distributed digitally to economists and other interested persons for informational and discussion purposes. The Bulletin may be reproduced freely with attribution of source.
Prior to creation of The Bulletin on Health, the NBER published the Bulletin on Aging and Health.
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