Intergenerational Benefits of Childhood Health Intervention: Evidence from Measles Vaccination

Previous literature suggested that promoting childhood health could have intergenerational benefits. While several studies have pointed to the life-cycle benefits of mass vaccinations and disease eliminations, fewer studies have explored their long-run intergenerational aspects. This paper joins the ongoing literature by exploring the intergenerational health benefits of mothers’ childhood exposure to the measles vaccination for their infants’ birth outcomes. Our identification strategy takes advantage of cross-cohort exposure to the introduction of the measles vaccine in 1963 and cross-state variations in pre-vaccine measles rates. Using the universe of birth records in the US over the years 1970-2004, we show that mothers who were exposed to the measles vaccine reveal improved birth outcomes. For mothers in states with an average pre-vaccine measles rate, full exposure to the vaccine during childhood is associated with roughly 12 grams of additional birth weight and a 5 percent reduction in the incidence of low-birth-weight newborns. A series of event-study analyses suggest that these findings are not driven by preexisting trends in outcomes. Moreover, the effects are considerably larger among black mothers and low-educated mothers. Further analyses suggest that improvements in education and increases in prenatal care utilization are potential mechanism channels.