Economics & Human Biology最新文献

{"title":"The effects of physical activity prescription on mental health: Evidence from primary care","authors":"Helena M. Hernández-Pizarro ,&nbsp;Laia Maynou","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101432","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101432","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While the benefits of physical activity on health are well documented, in high-income countries 1 in 3 adults do not reach the recommended levels. Thus, policy makers have developed interventions to promote physical activity. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of physical activity prescription on mental health outcomes, by studying an intervention that prescribes physical activity at the primary care level in Catalonia (PAFES). This intervention specifically targets the adult population with high cardiovascular risk. We use data from the Health Survey of Catalonia (2011–2016) and exploit the variation in the number of trained General Practitioners that prescribe physical activity. Our results show that physical activity prescription reduces the probability of suffering from poor mental health. This effect is mainly driven by females within the targeted population. We also explore the main effect (or the output) of the intervention. While PAFES increases the probability of patients undertaking high-level physical activity, it does not affect rates of sedentarism or minutes walked per day. Results are consistent when using alternative mental health outcome measures, including self-reported depression and anxiety. We conclude that the prescription of physical activity not only contributes to the improvement of physical health but is also a useful tool to help preserve mental wellbeing.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101432"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000844/pdfft?md5=253583980aac6eca1ec62dfa726312aa&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000844-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142272649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Diverging destinies: How children are faring under demographic transition","authors":"Glory Narjinary ,&nbsp;Srinivas Goli","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101429","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101429","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>India reached the replacement level of fertility in 2020. However, the journey of fertility transition is unconventional and heterogeneous within the country and across the different socio-economic groups. The fertility transition is considered to be faster than its socio-economic and health transition in several states. Thus, it has been presumed that the returns to fertility decline are heterogeneous across the states and population sub-groups. Our specific hypothesis is that although rich and poor, and educated and un-educated, everyone had significantly contributed to the fertility decline in response to family planning policies, only those socio-economically better-off have been investing relatively more in their children compared to the poor, and this has led to diverging destinies for children. We tested this supposition using a macro-level panel dataset (1992–2021), fixed and random effects, and IV regression models. The results confirm that child health care and outcomes have diverged while fertility declined from 1992 to 2021. These results are sustained in multiple robustness checks. While fertility is declining with highly state-sponsored family planning programmes, the persistent socio-economic inequalities are leading to unequal progress in health outcomes for children in India.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101429"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142122227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beyond the biological prime: Deciphering the link between child survival and maternal age in India","authors":"Muhammad Farhan Majid ,&nbsp;Opinder Kaur ,&nbsp;Anil B. Deolalikar","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101428","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101428","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper investigates the impact of maternal age at birth on child mortality in India, the world's most populous country burdened with significant neonatal and infant mortality. Utilizing data from the latest National Family Health Surveys, covering around 1 million children, our analysis incorporates models with household and biological-mother fixed-effects to address unobserved heterogeneity. Outcomes include neonatal mortality (&lt;28 days), infant mortality (&lt;12 months), and under-5 mortality. Findings reveal a U-shaped relationship between maternal age and child mortality, with the highest risk for mothers below 17 and above 40 years old. Robustness checks confirm the enduring significance of maternal age even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors and time-variant unobservables. Moreover, models with biological-mother fixed-effects suggest higher risks compared to models that only control for observables, indicating that regressions without controls for time-invariant heterogeneity may underestimate the risks of maternal age at birth.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101428"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142077356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from five European countries","authors":"Alessio Rebechi ,&nbsp;Anthony Lepinteur ,&nbsp;Andrew E. Clark ,&nbsp;Nicholas Rohde ,&nbsp;Claus Vögele ,&nbsp;Conchita D’Ambrosio","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101427","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101427","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We use quarterly panel data from the COME-HERE survey covering five European countries to analyse three facets of the experience of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, in terms of prevalence, loneliness peaked in April 2020, followed by a U-shape pattern in the rest of 2020, and then remained relatively stable throughout 2021 and 2022. We then establish the individual determinants of loneliness and compare them to those found in the literature predating the COVID-19 pandemic. As in previous work, women are lonelier, and partnership, education, income, and employment protect against loneliness. However, the pandemic substantially shifted the age profile: it is now the youngest who are the loneliest. We last show that pandemic policies affected loneliness, which rose with containment policies but fell with government economic support. Conversely, the intensity of the pandemic itself, via the number of recent COVID-19 deaths, had only a minor impact. The experience of the pandemic has thus shown that public policy can influence societal loneliness trends.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101427"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000790/pdfft?md5=03d9fd00bd5b0d18514bd27a02be094d&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000790-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142012174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Power to choose? Examining the link between contraceptive use decision and domestic violence","authors":"Manini Ojha ,&nbsp;Karan Babbar","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101416","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101416","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Contraception is a crucial tool that empowers women to control their bodily autonomy. Concurrently, domestic violence remains a pressing public health issue, depleting women’s autonomy. We establish a causal link between a woman’s contraceptive use decision and the occurrence of intimate partner violence. We use an instrumental variable approach to estimate our causal effects by utilizing nationally representative data for India. Using exogenous variation in the neighbourhood average of women’s exposure to family planning messages via radio, we find that if a woman independently makes the decision to use contraceptives, she is at a significantly higher risk of physical, sexual and emotional domestic violence. We estimate the bounds of our effects by assuming the IV to be plausibly exogenous, where we relax the exogeneity condition. Our findings underscore the importance of reproductive health in initiatives that reduce domestic violence and targeted policies that provide support to younger and employed women and those from backward caste and rural areas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101416"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141998092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 and population health: evidence from linked census data","authors":"Neil Rowland ,&nbsp;Duncan McVicar ,&nbsp;Stavros Vlachos ,&nbsp;Babak Jahanshahi ,&nbsp;Mark E. McGovern ,&nbsp;Dermot O’Reilly","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101417","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101417","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Particulate matter suspended in the air that is comprised of microscopic particles with a diameter of 2.5μm or less (PM_2.5) is among the most impactful pollutants globally. Extensive evidence shows exposure to ambient PM_2.5 is associated with a wide range of poor health outcomes. However, few studies examine long-run pollution exposures in nationally representative data. This study exploits Census data for Northern Ireland, linked to average PM_2.5 concentrations at the 1x1km grid-square level during the period 2002–2010. We combine outcome measures in 2011 with data on complete residential histories. Before adjusting for other covariates, we show strong relationships between PM_2.5 exposure, self-rated general health, disability, and all available (eleven) domain-specific health measures in the data. Associations with poor general health, chronic illness, breathing difficulties, mobility difficulties, and deafness are robust to extensive conditioning and to further analysis designed to examine sensitivity to unobserved confounders.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101417"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000698/pdfft?md5=d1a1268b99030344d3cb77ec106e93f9&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000698-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142086923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of economic news in predicting suicides","authors":"Francesco Moscone ,&nbsp;Elisa Tosetti ,&nbsp;Giorgio Vittadini","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101413","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101413","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper we explore the role of media and language used to comment on economic news in nowcasting and forecasting suicides in England and Wales. This is an interesting question, given the large delay in the release of official statistics on suicides. We use a large data set of over 200,000 news articles published in six major UK newspapers from 2001 to 2015 and carry sentiment analysis of the language used to comment on economic news. We extract daily indicators measuring a set of negative emotions that are often associated with poor mental health and use them to explain and forecast national daily suicide figures. We find that highly negative comments on the economic situation in newspaper articles are predictors of higher suicide numbers, especially when using words conveying stronger emotions of fear and despair. Our results suggest that media language carrying very strong, negative feelings is an early signal of a deterioration in a population’s mental health.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101413"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000650/pdfft?md5=237f61c53adf3c0485d41bd926ee4334&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000650-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142021359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Road to perdition? The effect of illicit drug use on labour market outcomes of prime-age men in Mexico","authors":"José-Ignacio Antón ,&nbsp;Juan Ponce ,&nbsp;Rafael Muñoz de Bustillo","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101415","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101415","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This research addresses the impact of illicit drug use on labour market outcomes of men in Mexico. We leverage statistical information from three waves of a comparable national survey and make use of the Lewbel’s heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable strategy to deal with the endogeneity of the drug consumption. Our results suggests that drug consumption has fairly negative effects in the Mexican context: it reduces employment, occupational attainment and formality and raises unemployment of local males. These effects seem larger than those estimated for high-income economies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 101415"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000674/pdfft?md5=235bc64ea886e62d7fea9e955d07daf0&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000674-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141983786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Health welfare in the digital era: Exploring the impact of digital trade on residents' health","authors":"Jianlong Wang ,&nbsp;Haitao Wu ,&nbsp;Yong Liu ,&nbsp;Weilong Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101414","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101414","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As a product combining information and communication technology, digital technology, and traditional trade, digital trade represents a new form of international trade development in the context of economic globalization. As its scale continues to expand, digital trade not only profoundly impacts consumer health behaviors and environmental pollution control but also enhances opportunities for residents to access healthcare products and services. This could potentially have a significant promoting effect on residents' health levels. However, the extent and mechanisms through which digital trade affects residents' health remain unclear. Accordingly, this study fills in a gap in the research by calculating the provincial-level digital trade index for China from 2012–2020 and matching it with data from the China Family Panel Studies. The goal is to find the micro-causal mechanisms of digital trade on residents' health from green consumption and environmental improvement perspectives. The results show that digital trade reduces residents' medical expenses and improves their health. We use a quasi-natural experiment by treating the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone as a digital trade treatment group and conducting a difference-in-differences estimation, finding that the health effects of digital trade remain significant. Heterogeneity indicates that the health effects of digital trade are powerful for middle- and high-income households and rural residents. In the east and center, in regions with well-developed transportation infrastructure and digital financial inclusion, the development of digital trade is more conducive to residents' health. Additionally, we demonstrate that digital trade can affect residents' health by promoting green consumption, eliminating energy poverty (i.e., improving indoor air pollution), and enhancing environmental quality (i.e., improving outdoor environmental pollution). This study provides solid scientific empirical evidence for enhancing human sustainable development through global digital trade.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101414"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141876595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trust predicts compliance with COVID-19 containment policies: Evidence from ten countries using big data","authors":"Francesco Sarracino ,&nbsp;Talita Greyling ,&nbsp;Kelsey J. O'Connor ,&nbsp;Chiara Peroni ,&nbsp;Stephanie Rossouw","doi":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101412","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101412","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We use Twitter, Google mobility, and Oxford policy data to study the relationship between trust and compliance over the period March 2020 to January 2021 in ten, mostly European, countries. Trust has been shown to be an important correlate of compliance with COVID-19 containment policies. However, the previous findings depend upon two assumptions: first, that compliance is time invariant, and second, that compliance can be measured using self reports or mobility measures alone. We relax these assumptions by calculating a new time-varying measure of compliance as the association between containment policies and people's mobility behavior. Additionally, we develop measures of trust in others and national institutions by applying emotion analysis to Twitter data. Results from various panel estimation techniques demonstrate that compliance changes over time and that increasing (decreasing) trust in others predicts increasing (decreasing) compliance. This evidence indicates that compliance changes over time, and further confirms the importance of cultivating trust in others.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50554,"journal":{"name":"Economics & Human Biology","volume":"54 ","pages":"Article 101412"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000649/pdfft?md5=f4587bc47ac25965a4eb031f29c0712d&pid=1-s2.0-S1570677X24000649-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141762345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}