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This paper examines the causal effect of childcare provision on grandparents’ health in the United States. We use the sex ratio among older adults’ children as an instrument for grandparental childcare provision. Our instrument exploits that parents of daughters transition to grandparenthood earlier and invest more in their grandchildren than parents of sons. We estimate 2SLS regressions using data from the Health and Retirement Study. The results suggest that providing childcare is detrimental to grandparents’ physical functioning and subjective health. We show that these effects increase with the intensity of grandchild care provision, and the effects are driven primarily by grandmothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behaviour change communication (BCC) remains a central component of the interventions used in the fight against malaria in Ghana. However, there is limited evidence of its effectiveness. This study evaluated the effects of BCC strategies on knowledge (symptoms, causes and prevention) and overall knowledge of malaria among Ghanaian women aged 15–49 years. The propensity score matching (PSM) approach and logistic regression were used to analyse data from the 2016 edition of the Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS). Women who participated in community-level education or heard/saw media messages on malaria, or both, had significantly more knowledge of the disease than women who lacked access to any of these mediums of communication. The effect of these strategies on women's overall knowledge of malaria is about 2% to 4% and is higher on their knowledge of the symptoms (3% to 6%) and prevention (2% to 4%) than the causes (2%). The combined effects of both mediums of communication are relatively higher than the effect of either of them as a single medium of communication. Further analysis showed that improved knowledge of the disease is associated with higher preventive measures taken by women for themselves and for their children. The results are more significant in rural and poor households than in urban and non-poor households. These findings underscore the need for the Ministry of Health and its partner institutions to adopt an innovative approach which combines the two strategies in intensively educating Ghanaians, and women in particular, on the symptoms and prevention of malaria, giving due cognisance to households' socioeconomic status and geographical location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motivation of the present study is to complement the extant literature by assessing the relevance of governance and information technology in how African trade affects female labour force participation. The study focuses on 48 African countries using data for the period 1996–2021. An adopted empirical strategy is the fixed effects regressions that are designed to address concerns for simultaneity and the unobserved heterogeneity. The fractional probit model based on the pooled Bernoulli quasi-maximum likelihood method is also employed. The following main findings are established. First, governance moderates intra-African trade to engender positive synergies on female labour force participation. The positive synergies are apparent from the overall quality of institutions, government effectiveness and the rule of law. Second, information technology does not significantly moderate intra-African trade to affect female labour force participation. The established findings from fixed effects regressions are robust to fractional probit model estimations. The findings are relevant in informing policy makers on how governance can be used to moderate the influence of African trade in promoting female labour force participation. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the impact of racial matching between teacher and student on the academic performance of middle school students in Brazil. The data comes from an educational evaluation survey carried out by the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation – Ministry of Education of Brazil (FUNDAJ 2020), which followed the same cohort of students in the sixth and seventh years of public middle schools, between the years of 2017 and 2018. To address to the potential source of endogeneity, we use FUNDAJ panel data to estimate student fixed effects models, which makes it possible to compare students who have one race-matched and one non-race-matched teacher within the same subject in the two years of data. The results show that, when placed in a situation of racial equality with their Portuguese and Mathematics teachers, Black students will present better grades in both subjects, by about 30% of their average grade. The results also show evidence of heterogeneity, with stronger effects in female students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identifies obesity as an important channel through which global warming affects human capital. By analyzing plausibly exogenous year-to-year temperature fluctuations in 152 countries from 1975 to 2016, we find that global warming has significantly increased obesity rates in countries located in temperate zones, while only causing a reduction in a small number of tropical countries. The estimates suggest that a 1 ∘ C increase in the annual mean temperature would result in a worldwide increase in obese adults of 79.7 million, or 12.3%. Similar patterns emerge when examining the effects of temperature bins, seasonal mean temperature, temperature variations, and temperature shocks. Furthermore, we identify substantial heterogeneity in the impact across countries with varying income levels, age structures, and education levels. Finally, by comparing the baseline model with a long-difference model, we demonstrate that long-term adaptation may not significantly mitigate the impact of global warming on obesity in temperate zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While foreign migrants contribute to economic development, they may impact public health by transmitting communicable diseases to the local population. With its geopolitical position, Thailand has been a primary destination for migrants from neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia and beyond. This positioning makes it a focal point for examining the complexities of migration dynamics and its implications for public health. Through a quantitative analysis, this paper investigates the influence of foreign migrants on physical health issues in Thailand, exploring their impact on various types of communicable diseases. The utilization of provincial-level data from Thailand offers insights into the localized effects of migrant populations on public health within the country. These insights can serve as a valuable resource for researchers and policymakers who conduct comparative analyses, facilitating a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between international migration and public health worldwide. Methods: A spatial panel autoregressive model (SAR) is applied on the provincial level communicable diseases and socio-economic data in Thailand from the period 2016 to 2021. Results: The results indicate that the influence of foreign migrants on communicable diseases in Thailand varies depending on the type of disease. While an increase in migrants correlates with a higher prevalence of respiratory and other communicable diseases, it conversely reduces the prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases. Additionally, we found that migrants do not significantly impact the prevalence of food- and water-borne diseases, insect-borne diseases, animal-borne diseases, or sexually transmitted diseases in Thailand. Additionally, other factors, such as GPP per capita, unemployment, poverty, and technology access, strongly correlate with most types of communicable diseases. Conclusion: As revealed by this study, the increase in migrants leads to a rise in respiratory and other communicable diseases, as well as a decrease in vaccine-preventable diseases, which carries significant policy implications. These results urge policymakers, the Ministry of Labour, and the Ministry of Public Health to implement tailored policies and measures to enhance public health and effectively mitigate the risk of communicable diseases transmitted by migrants in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the optimal lockdown policy using the SQAIRD model over a network with three population groups (young, adult, and old). We show that different lockdown policies may be justified by different socioeconomic structures (objective cost functions that are either convex or concave). We also show that a lockdown policy is always better than a laissez-faire policy, and a targeted policy specific to each group outperforms a uniform policy. In our benchmark example, we consider the case of Italy. Our simulations show that: (a) a lockdown policy is always better than the laissez-faire policy because it limits the costs generated by the pandemic in an uncontrolled situation; (b) a group-specific targeted lockout policy is more effective than a uniform policy to the extent that the groups differ. The latter is a less expensive targeted policy (as it optimally minimizes direct, indirect, and vaccination costs), and it is equally effective in controlling the pandemic. One finding of particular interest is that the optimal lockdown rate should be higher for the young and elderly than for adults. This is motivated by the fact that younger individuals are more likely to spread the virus in question asymptomatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using detailed data from the third round of the District Level Household Survey of India, this paper examines in detail the effect of child marriage of women on contraceptive usage and access to skilled care during pregnancy and delivery. This paper particularly focuses on sixteen different outcome variables categorized under four broad sub-groups; namely, family planning and contraceptive usage, birth history, utilization of antenatal care; and finally, natal and postnatal care. The overall results presented in the paper suggest that women who marry early, i.e. before they reach the legal age of marriage are more likely to have experienced miscarriage, give birth before they turn 18 and lose children. They also lack current contraception usage and are less likely to access public health facilities during both pregnancy and childbirth. These results, however, vary widely based on the state of residence and age of the women in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study investigates the impact of low food diversity on the health status of children using the Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) and Dietary Serving Score (DSS) in a sub-district with the highest percentage of poor households. The economic burden of low food diversity was observed by analysing the cost of illness in the children with low food diversity. Methods: Data from 329 children were collected. We determined the impact of DDS and DSS and other factors on the health status of children aged 2–14 years, using a probit model. The cost of illness (e.g., typhus, stomach ulcers, coughs, flu, and fever) due to low food diversity was calculated from medical registration fees, medical action costs, transportation costs, and other costs. Results: The results shows that a 1% point increase in DDS or DSS potentially decreases children's health complaints by 10% and 8%, respectively. Given the current 26% prevalence of health complaints among children with low DDS, the annual economic burden reaches US$75.72 per child per household. In addition, the current 41% prevalence of children with low DDS resulted in an annual cost to the government of US$153.45 per child. Conclusions: The effect of inadequate dietary diversity on children's health is potentially high and contributes to the economic burden on households and the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Professional sports teams employ highly paid managers and coaches to train players and make tactical and strategic team decisions. A large literature analyzes the impact of manager decisions on team outcomes. Empirical analysis of manager decisions requires a quantifiable proxy variable for manager decisions. Previous research focused on manager dismissals, tenure on teams, the number of substitutions made in games or the number of healthy players on rosters held out of games for rest, generally finding small positive impacts of manager decisions on team success. Design/methodology/approach: The authors quantify manager decisions by developing a novel measure of game-specific coaching decisions: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of playing-time across players on a team roster over the course of a season. Findings: Evidence from two-way fixed effects regression models explaining observed variation in National Basketball Association team winning percentage over the 1999–2000 to 2018–2019 seasons show a significant association between managers' allocation of playing time and team success. A one standard deviation change in playing-time HHI that reflects a flattened distribution of player talent is associated with between one and two additional wins per season, holding the talent of players on the team roster constant. Heterogeneity exists in the impact across teams with different player talent. Originality/value: This is one of the first papers to examine playing-time concentration in the NBA. The results are important for understanding how managerial decisions about resource allocation lead to sustained competitive advantage. Linking coaching decisions to wins can help teams to better promote this core product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the labour market and health effects of a non-contributory long-term unemployment (LTU) benefit targeted at middle-aged disadvantaged workers. To do so, we exploit a Spanish reform introduced in July 2012 that increased the age eligibility threshold to receive the benefit from 52 to 55. Our results show that men who were eligible for the benefit experience a reduction in injury hospitalisations by 12.9% as well as a 2 percentage points drop in the probability of a mental health diagnosis. None of the results are significant for women. We document two factors that explain the gender differences: the labour market impact of the reform is stronger for men, and eligible men are concentrated in more physically demanding sectors, like construction. Importantly, we also find evidence of a program substitution effect between LTU and partial disability benefits. Our results highlight the role of long-term unemployment benefits as a protecting device for the (physical and mental) health of middle-aged, low-educated workers who are in a disadvantaged position in the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has not only maintained its top position among countries with the largest number of underweight adults but has also jumped to a higher position among countries with largest increase in the proportion of overweight people in the last three decades. More studies focus on double burden of malnutrition among women than on men. This study uses the quantile regression model to analyse the covariates associated with low and high body mass index (BMI) primarily among men aged 20–54 years during 2015–2016 in India. Occupations that involve more manual work help in maintaining a normal BMI along with better education, dietary diversity, and less sedentary lifestyle. A gendered comparison of men and their spouses highlights the differences in the association of covariates with BMI for men and women. The results from this study will provide insights for behavioural change at an individual level and inputs for public health intervention for addressing ill health concerns arising from underweight, overweight, or obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study ai ms to verify and analyze the existence of cognitive dissonance in the self-assessment of health by individuals in Brazil, that is, the difference between self-rated health and the health status of individuals. To accomplish this, we use data from the 2013 National Health Survey, which collected the self-assessments that individuals made of their health and information about their health status. This information was used to build indices that seek to represent a person's health status in relation to chronic illnesses, physical and mental well-being, eating habits and lifestyle. To identify the presence of cognitive dissonance, the CUB (Combination of a discrete Uniform and shifted Binomial distributions) model was used, which relates self-assessed health with the developed indices. Cognitive dissonance was identified in self-assessed health in relation to eating habits and lifestyle, and this dissonance may be associated with a present bias in the self-assessment of health in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the causal effects of mother's and father's education on child-health outcomes in Zimbabwe, exploiting the exogenous variation generated by the 1980 education reform. We use four waves of Demographic and Health Surveys for Zimbabwe and estimate a simultaneous-equation model to take into account possible selection into co-residence between parents and children, endogeneity biases, and parental education sorting. Our results suggest that father's education affects the health outcomes of under-5 children and matters more than that of the mother. These results continue to hold in a number of robustness checks. Moreover, while there is selection into co-residence with the child, this does not affect the causal effect of education on child health. Last, parental educational sorting is also shown to be important. Our findings suggest that not taking the education of both parents into account simultaneously may yield misleading conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide a comprehensive picture of the health effects of social isolation using longitudinal data from 21 European countries. First, using Cox regressions, we find a significant, strong, and robust association between our social isolation index and mortality. The association is much stronger in Eastern European countries. While all of our pooled countries estimates ranged between a 20 and 30% increase in the mortality hazard for the socially isolated that number jumps to 45% for Eastern European countries. We then estimate linear regressions to study the dynamic "value-added" effects of social isolation on health and other mediator outcomes. We find that social isolation at baseline leads to worsening health in subsequent waves along all of the dimensions observed. Up to 13% of the effect of baseline social isolation on mortality can be attributed to the combined one-wave-ahead impact of social isolation on increased frailty, reduced cognitive function, and increased smoking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of searching for industrial waste management solutions in construction is key for environmental protection. Research in recent years has focused on solutions aimed at reducing the carbon footprint. This paper presents the results of tests conducted on concrete reinforced with treated recycled tyre steel fibres (RTSFs) compared to the same amount of manufactured steel fibres (MSFs). The effectiveness of concrete reinforcement with RTSFs was analysed using the fracture mechanics parameters of cementitious composites. Rheological tests, residual flexural tensile strength tests, work of fracture measurements, toughness indices, examinations of the fibre distribution in the concrete, and SEM observations of the concrete fractures with fibres were performed. Determining the work of fracture and toughness indices was an innovative aspect of this paper. As the amount of RTSFs increased, a decrease in the consistency was observed, although the distribution of fibres in the concrete was uniform, as proven by the results of computer tomography tests. Concrete reinforced with RTSFs that is purified and refined during the recycling process might have better properties than concrete reinforced with the same amount of MSFs. The application of RTSFs in construction has environmental and economic benefits in addition to the strengthening of cementitious composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It has been documented that income is a strong determinant of dental care use in Canada, mostly due to the lack of public coverage for dental care. We assess the contributions of food insecurity and home ownership to income-related equity in dental care use and access. We add to the literature by adding these two variables among other socio-economic determinants of equity in dental care use and access to dental care. Evidence on equity in access to and use of dental care in Canada can inform policymaking.Methods: We estimate income-related horizontal inequity indexes for the probability of 1) receiving at least one dental visit in the last 12 months; and 2) lack of dental visits during the 3 years before the interview. We conduct the analyses using data from the 2013-2014 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) at the national and regional level.Results: There is pro-rich inequity in the probability of visiting a dentist or an orthodontist and in access to dental care in Ontario. Inequities vary across jurisdictions. Housing tenure and food insecurity contribute importantly to both use of and access to dental care, adding information not captured by standard socio-economic determinants.Conclusions: Redistributing income may not be enough to reduce inequities. Careful monitoring of equity in dental care is needed together with interventions targeting fragile groups not only in terms of income but also in improving house and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for the betterment of health status, while also considering health expenditure, energy, and environmental issues. This paper examines the nexus between health status and health expenditure (both public and private), energy consumption and environmental pollution in the SAARC-BIMSTEC region.Methods: We utilized the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, the heterogeneous panel causality test, the cross sectional dependence test, the cointegration test and the Pesaran cross sectional dependent (CADF) unit root test for obtaining estimated results from data over 16 years (2002-2017).Results: Our results authorize the cointegration among the variables used, where the coefficients of energy consumption, public and private health expenditures, and economic growth are 0.027, 0.014, 0.030, and 0.029, respectively, and indicating positive and statistically significant effects. The coefficient of environmental pollution is - 0.085, implying significant negative effect on the health status of these regions in the long-run. However, no panel wise significant impact is found in the short-run. Bidirectional and unidirectional causal links between the studied variables and the health status are also identified..Conclusions: The improved health status in the SAARC-BIMSTEC region needs to be protected by articulating the effective policies. The attained results are theoretically and empirically consistent, and have important policy implications in the health sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategies implemented to contain the spread of COVID-19 have clearly shown the existence of a nontrivial relation between epidemiological and environmental outcomes. On the one hand, mitigation policy generates unclear pollution effects, since social distancing measures favor a reduction in industrial emissions while health regulations and recommendations contribute to increase it. On the other hand, increased pollution exposes individuals to a higher chance of severe symptoms increasing their probability of death due to respiratory diseases. In order to understand how balancing the different goals in the design of effective containment policies we develop a normative approach to account for their consequences on the economy, health and the environment by analyzing the working mechanisms of social distancing in a pollution-extended macroeconomic-epidemiological framework with health-environment feedback effects. By limiting social contacts and thus disease incidence, social distancing favors health and environmental outcomes at the cost of a deterioration in macroeconomic conditions. We show that social distancing alone is not enough to reverse the growth pattern of both disease prevalence and pollution and thus it is optimal to reduce the disease spread even if this generates a deterioration in environmental conditions. We also extend our baseline model to account for the role of strategic interactions between neighbor economies in which both pollution and disease prevalence are transboundary. In this context we show that free-riding induces sizeable efficiency losses, quantifiable in about 5% excess disease prevalence and 10% excess pollution at the end of the epidemic management program in the case of only two interacting economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Industrial pollution is considered to be a detrimental factor for human health. This study, therefore, explores the link between health status and industrial pollution for the top 20 industrialised countries of the world.Methods: Crude death rate is used to represent health status and CO2 emissions from manufacturing industries and construction, and nitrous oxide emissions are considered to be indicators of industrial pollution. Using annual data of 60 years (1960-2019), an unbalanced panel data estimation method is followed where (Driscoll, J. C. et al. Rev Econ Stat, 80, 549-560, 1998) standard error technique is employed to deal with heteroscedasticity, autocorrelation and cross-sectional dependence problems.Results: The research findings indicate that industrial pollution arising from both variables has a detrimental impact on human health and significantly increases the death rate, while an increase in economic growth, number of physicians, urbanisation, sanitation facilities and schooling decreases the death rate.Conclusions: Therefore, minimisation of industrial pollution should be the topmost policy agenda in these countries. All the findings are consistent theoretically, and have empirical implications as well. The policy implication of this study is that the mitigation of industrial pollution, considering other pertinent factors, should be addressed appropriately by enunciating effective policies to reduce the human death rate and improve health status in the studied panel countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Using the example of secondary prophylaxis of myocardial infarction (MI), our aim was to establish a framework for assessing cost consequences of compliance with clinical guidelines; thereby taking cost trajectories and cost distributions into account.Methods: Swiss mandatory health insurance claims from 1840 persons with hospitalization for MI in 2014 were analysed. Included persons were predominantly male (74%), had a median age of 73 years, and 71% were pre-exposed to drugs for secondary prophylaxis, prior to index hospitalization. Guideline compliance was defined as being prescribed recommended 4-class drug prophylaxis including drugs from the following four classes: beta-blockers, statins, aspirin or P2Y12 inhibitors, and angiotension-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers. Health care expenditures (HCE) accrued over 1 year after index hospitalization were compared by compliance status using two-part regression, trajectory analysis, and counterfactual decomposition analysis.Results: Only 32% of persons received recommended 4-class prophylaxis. Compliant persons had lower HCE (- 4865 Swiss Francs [95% confidence interval - 8027; - 1703]) and were more likely to belong to the most favorable HCE trajectory (with 6245 Swiss Francs average annual HCE and comprising 78% of all studied persons). Distributional analyses showed that compliance-associated HCE reductions were more pronounced among persons with HCE above the median.Conclusions: Compliance with recommended prophylaxis was robustly associated with lower HCE and more favorable cost trajectories, but mainly among persons with high health care expenditures. The analysis framework is easily transferrable to other diseases and provides more comprehensive information on HCE consequences of non-compliance than mean-based regressions alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Community care has recently been restructured with the development of Community Health Centres (CHCs), forcing a general rethink on the survival of previous organizational solutions adopted to reduce inappropriate ED access, for example Walk-in-Clinics (WiCs).Methods: We focus on the Italian Emilia-Romagna Region that has made huge investments in CHC development, whilst failing to proceed at a uniform rate from area to area. Estimating panel count data models for the period 2015-2018, we pursue two goals. First we test the existence of a "CHC effect", choosing five urban cities with different degree of development of the CHC model and assessing whether, all else being equal, patients treated by GPs who have their premises inside the CHC show a lower need to seek inappropriate care (Aim 1). Second, we focus our attention on Walk-in-Clinics, investigating the long-established WiC in the city of Parma that currently coexists with three CHCs recently established in the same catchment area. In this case we try to assess whether, and to what extent, the progressive development of the CHCs in the city of Parma has been affecting the dynamics of WiC access (Aim 2).Results: As regards Aim 1, we show that CHCs reduce the probability of inappropriate patient access to emergency care. As regards Aim 2, in the city of Parma patients whose GP belongs to the CHC are less likely to visit the WiC on a workday, with no significant change during the weekend when CHCs are closed, questioning the need to maintain them both in the same area when the CHC model is fully implemented.Conclusions: Our results confirm the hypothesis that expanding access to primary care settings diminishes inappropriate ED use. In addition, our findings suggest that where CHCs and WiCs coexist in the same area, it may be advisable to implement strategies that bring WiC activities into step with CHC-based general primary care reforms to avoid duplication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the causal effect of education on health behaviors and obesity in Turkey, which is a middle-income developing country. Health Surveys of the Turkish Statistical Institute for the years 2008, 2010 and 2012 are used. The health behaviors considered are smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, and exercise, and one health outcome, namely, obesity. We examine the causal effect of education on these health behaviors and on obesity. An instrumental variable approach is used in order to address the endogeneity of education to health behaviors. Educational expansion of the early 1960s is used as the source of exogenous variation in the years of schooling. Our main findings are as follows. Education does not significantly affect the probability of smoking or exercise. As the education level increases, the probability of alcohol consumption and the probability of fruit and vegetable consumption also increase. Nevertheless, some of the initial results change when we perform robustness checks. In order to check the robustness of our results, we narrow the time period around the policy years, since the impact of political and socio-economic developments may change the preferences of the individuals and hence invalidate our results. The evidence from the samples used for robustness checks suggests that there is a negative significant relationship between the probability of smoking and the years of schooling. Therefore, we can state that education can be a relevant policy instrument to fight smoking in Turkey. However, it is not a sufficient policy instrument to combat obesity, unlike in developed countries. This study provides a baseline for further research on the various aspects of health behaviors in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test the 'home-country weights hypothesis': that the validity of cost utility analyses is improved if utility is measured using an instrument with utility weights obtained from people living in the 'home-country'—the same country as the patients who are to receive the service which is being evaluated. The convergent validity of multi attribute utility instruments (MAUI) with and without home-country weights was compared. Comparisons were made within and between countries. The analyses employed data from 7933 individuals in 6 Western countries, each of whom completed the questionnaires of 5 MAUI; the EQ-5D-5L, SF-6D, HUI 3, 15D and AQoL-8D. Convergent validity was not greater when an MAUI had home-country weights. Differences in national traits between culturally similar countries may be too small or subtle to affect the utility scores estimated from existing MAUI. This implies that the choice of an MAUI for economic evaluation in culturally similar countries should not be based upon the country in which utility weights were estimated but upon a broader consideration of an instrument's construct validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risks. Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003–2013), we find that, on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterised by lower physical burden and injury risk. The results also show important differences across skill groups. Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but has no significant effect on those with low levels. We also find that that immigration led to an improvement self-reported measures of native workers' health. These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants report lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effect of birth weight on health throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, focusing on two health outcomes: all-cause and cause-specific hospitalizations and sickness absences. The outcomes are important, not only from a health perspective but also from a labor market perspective, as the inability to fully participate in the labor force due to impaired health is known to have important long-term consequences. Our analysis focuses on differences between siblings, using full-population Swedish register data on cohorts born between 1973 and 1994. The relationship between birth weight and health is strongest during infancy, after which it weakens throughout childhood and adolescence. In adulthood, a stronger relationship again appears, suggesting a U-shaped relationship over the examined part of the life course. During childhood and adolescence, birth weight influences all examined disease types with the exception of cancers, with nontrivial effect sizes in relative terms. During adulthood, morbidity due to mental diseases dominates, primarily through conditions with early-age origins. Consequently, we provide new evidence that birth weight matters for both short- and long-term health outcomes and that it is of a dynamic nature in terms of its magnitude and which disease types are affected. Lastly, our results remain robust to a range of sensitivity analyses, including nonlinear specifications of birth weight, and to estimations based on a sample of same-sex twin pairs, allowing us to further reduce the influence of genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Identity Theory proposed by Akerlof and Kranton (2000), we conceptualize the interactions between conservative outlook and female wellbeing through influencing gender norms. Conservative households often prefer women to stay home, which correlates to female employment and decision-making autonomy, affecting female physical mobility and female nutrition. Finding a suitable indicator for conservative outlook is difficult as we typically lack household-level ‘value survey’. In the fast modernizing context of rural Bangladesh, wearing burqa (veil) is often perceived as an indicator of socially conservative outlook. Using this insight, we process the data from the second wave of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) for 2015 to test the statistically robust association between household-level conservative outlook and gender-sensitive wellbeing indicators such as female employment, body mass index, and decision-making autonomy for the population of ever-married females aged 15–49 years old. After controlling for individual, household, and regional characteristics, and using sub-regional fixed effects, our findings suggest that living in conservative households is associated with lower probability of female employment. Females from conservative households are less likely to be in wage work or salaried jobs. The probability of being overweight is also higher for the females in conservative households as compared to non-conservative households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that particular institutional arrangements partly explain the large and persistent differences in health systems and health outcomes observed in former colonies. Drawing on data from the World Health Organization for 62 countries, covering the period 2000–2014, we explore whether economic (risk of expropriation) and health (complete cause of death registries) institutions explain mortality rates and access to healthcare. To identify this relationship, we use settler mortality and the distance of the capital from the nearest major port – factors associated with institutional arrangements – to explain cross-national variation in health outcomes and the universality of health systems. We find that inclusive institutions arrangements – that protect and acknowledge the rights of citizens – are associated with better health outcomes (e.g. lower infant mortality and lower maternal mortality) as well as with better health systems (e.g. more skilled birth attendance and greater immunization). Inclusive institutions not only foster economic growth but improve health and well-being too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I here use GIS and HIV data from five African countries to estimate the effect of road proximity on HIV infection. I find a negative effect of the distance to the nearest paved road on the probability of being infected with HIV: a one standard-deviation fall in this distance (approximately 2.4 km) increases the probability of infection by 0.6-2.0 percentage points. Using slope as an instrument for road distance continues to produce a negative and significant estimated coefficient. However this relationship may also reflect selection and reverse causality in individual choice of location, and I extensively discuss the role of migration. While the number of lifetime sexual partners is significantly influenced by the presence of roads in some recent years, the effect of road distance on access to protection has disappeared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, an estimated 445,000 deaths and 216 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, while 70% of the deaths occurred in children under five years old. Changes in climatic exposures such as temperature and precipitation make malaria one of the most climate sensitive outcomes. Using a global malaria mortality dataset for 105 countries between 1980 and 2010, we find a non-linear relationship between temperature and malaria mortality and estimate that the global optimal temperature threshold beyond which all-age malaria mortality increases is 20.8 °C, while in the case of child mortality; a significantly lower optimum temperature of 19.3° is estimated. Our results also suggest that this optimal temperature is 28.4 °C and 26.3 °C in Africa and Asia, respectively - the continents where malaria is most prevalent. Furthermore, we estimate that child mortality (ages 0-4) is likely to increase by up to 20% in some areas due to climate change by the end of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate multiple treatment effects in presence of selection-bias and response heterogeneity, using panel data. A control function was added to a fixed-effects based correlated random coefficients model. Selection model to create the control function was contrasted between multinomial logit and multinomial probit. For the multinomial logit model, parametric and semi-parametric bias correction techniques, as proposed in Lee (Econometrica 51(2):507-512, 1983), Dubin and McFadden (Econometrica 52(2):345-362, 1984) and Dahl (Econometrica 70(6):2367-2420, 2002) respectively, were implemented. We find that controlling time-varying endogeneity, allowing response heterogeneity, the type of bias correction method and the choice of the selection model, each had significant impact on the estimated treatment effects. Using the case of biologic DMARDs, we show that in the presence of heterogeneity and multiple treatments, the specification of the latent index model should be carefully chosen along with selection bias correction techniques appropriate to the choice of the latent index model. These issues have an important impact on policy. Under one set of assumptions, we may accept a formulary expansion policy on biologic DMARDs to be cost-neutral, while rejecting the same policy as not cost-saving under another set of assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a widespread displacement of coal by natural gas as space heating and cooking technology in Turkey in the last two decades, triggered by the deployment of natural gas networks. We examine the impact of this development on mortality among adults and the elderly by exploiting the variation in the timing of the deployment and the intensity of expansion of gas networks across provinces using data from 2001 to 2016. The results indicate that the expansion of natural gas has caused significant reductions in mortality among both adults and the elderly. These findings are supported by our auxiliary analysis, which demonstrates that the expansion of natural gas networks might have led to a significant improvement in air quality. Furthermore, we show that the mortality gains are primarily driven by reductions in cardio-respiratory deaths, which are more likely to be due to conditions caused or exacerbated by air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the effect of job loss on mortality for older male workers with a strong labor force attachment. Using Dutch administrative data, we find that job loss due to firm closure increased the probability of death within five years by a sizable 0.60 percentage points. Importantly, this effect is estimated using a model that controls for firm-level worker characteristics, such as lagged firm-level annual average mortality rates. On the mechanism driving the effect of job loss on mortality, we provide evidence for an effect running through stress and changes in life style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data from 102 countries in 1975-2010, this paper explores the dynamic interaction among health, education and growth by applying panel VAR techniques. Empirical findings reveal that the predictive pattern among health, education and economic growth is not stable in the cross section of countries. While health has positive contribution to growth for all countries, education has benefited only higher middle income and high-income OECD countries. Economic growth has predictive power for the components of human development in the high-income OECD countries. Further, econometric evidence reveals that bi-directional relationship between health and education should be supported to reap the benefits of human development on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a veto game a biased expert recommends an action that an uninformed decision maker can accept or reject for an outside option. The arrangement is ubiquitous in political institutions, corporations, and consumer markets but has seen limited use in applications due to a poor understanding of the equilibrium set and an ensuing debate over selection. We develop a simple method to construct every veto equilibrium and identify the most informative equilibrium in a setting that spans prior work. We show that Krishna and Morgan's (2001) equilibrium is maximally informative and strengthen Dessein's (2002) comparison of full delegation and veto. In an application we study the relationship between a patient and a doctor with a financial incentive to overtreat, and show that the doctor's bias harms the patient both through excessive treatment and information loss, that the latter can be substantial, and that insurance benefits both parties by improving communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine birth order differences in health of newborns and follow the children throughout childhood using high-quality administrative data on individuals born in Denmark between 1981 and 2010. Family fixed effects models show a positive and robust effect of birth order on health at birth; firstborn children are less healthy at birth. During earlier pregnancies, women are more likely to smoke, receive more prenatal care, and are more likely to suffer a medical pregnancy complication, suggesting worse maternal health. We further show that the health disadvantage of firstborns persists in the first years of life, disappears by age seven, and becomes a health advantage in adolescence. In contrast, later-born children are throughout childhood more likely to suffer an injury. The results on health in adolescence are consistent with previous evidence of a firstborn advantage in education and with the hypothesis that postnatal investments differ between first- and later-born children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ultrasound scan data from paediatric hospitals, and the exogenous 'shock' of learning the gender of an unborn baby, the paper documents the first causal evidence that offspring gender affects adult risk-aversion. On a standard Holt-Laury criterion, parents of daughters, whether unborn or recently born, become almost twice as risk-averse as parents of sons. The study demonstrates this in longitudinal and cross-sectional data, for fathers and mothers, for babies in the womb and new-born children, and in a West European nation and East European nation. These findings may eventually aid our understanding of risky health behaviors and gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effects of immigration on waiting times for the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Linking administrative records from Hospital Episode Statistics (2003-2012) with immigration data drawn from the UK Labour Force Survey, we find that immigration reduced waiting times for outpatient referrals and did not have significant effects on waiting times in accident and emergency departments (A&E) and elective care. The reduction in outpatient waiting times can be explained by the fact that immigration increases natives' internal mobility and that immigrants tend to be healthier than natives who move to different areas. Finally, we find evidence that immigration increased waiting times for outpatient referrals in more deprived areas outside of London. The increase in average waiting times in more deprived areas is concentrated in the years immediately following the 2004 EU enlargement and disappears in the medium term (e.g., 3-4 years). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Few studies have estimated cumulative health care costs post-diagnosis for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Using an incidence-based approach, the objective of this analysis was to estimate cumulative costs of ASD to the Ontario health care system of children and adolescents.Using administrative health records from Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a retrospective, population-based, incident cohort study of children and adolescents aged 0–19 years old diagnosed with ASD was undertaken to estimate cumulative health care costs of ASD to the health care system from 2010 to 2019. Cumulative health care costs in 2021 Canadian dollars (CAD) from diagnosis to death or end of observation period were estimated using a consistent estimator based on the inverse probability weighting technique. Cumulative health care costs (and respective 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were estimated for 1, 5 and 10 years post-diagnosis by sex, age group and health service.In 2010, there were 2867 diagnosed cases of ASD; in 2019, the number of incident cases had risen to 6072. The first year (i.e., 1-year) post-diagnosis cost of ASD was $4710.18 CAD (95% CI 4560.28–4860.08); just under a third of costs were for physician services. Total cumulative 5- and 10-year discounted costs were $16,025.95 CAD (15,371.64–16,680.26) and $32,635.76 CAD (28,906.94–36,364.58), respectively. Mean costs were higher for females and older age groups.These results suggest that costs of ASD are high in the year of diagnosis and then increase at a steady rate thereafter. This information will help with future resource planning within the health care sector to ensure individuals with ASD are supported once their diagnosis is established.Objectives: Few studies have estimated cumulative health care costs post-diagnosis for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Using an incidence-based approach, the objective of this analysis was to estimate cumulative costs of ASD to the Ontario health care system of children and adolescents.Using administrative health records from Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a retrospective, population-based, incident cohort study of children and adolescents aged 0–19 years old diagnosed with ASD was undertaken to estimate cumulative health care costs of ASD to the health care system from 2010 to 2019. Cumulative health care costs in 2021 Canadian dollars (CAD) from diagnosis to death or end of observation period were estimated using a consistent estimator based on the inverse probability weighting technique. Cumulative health care costs (and respective 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were estimated for 1, 5 and 10 years post-diagnosis by sex, age group and health service.In 2010, there were 2867 diagnosed cases of ASD; in 2019, the number of incident cases had risen to 6072. The first year (i.e., 1-year) post-diagnosis cost of ASD was $4710.18 CAD (95% CI 4560.28–4860.08); just under a third of costs were for physician services. Total cumulative 5- and 10-year discounted costs were $16,025.95 CAD (15,371.64–16,680.26) and $32,635.76 CAD (28,906.94–36,364.58), respectively. Mean costs were higher for females and older age groups.These results suggest that costs of ASD are high in the year of diagnosis and then increase at a steady rate thereafter. This information will help with future resource planning within the health care sector to ensure individuals with ASD are supported once their diagnosis is established.Methods: Few studies have estimated cumulative health care costs post-diagnosis for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Using an incidence-based approach, the objective of this analysis was to estimate cumulative costs of ASD to the Ontario health care system of children and adolescents.Using administrative health records from Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a retrospective, population-based, incident cohort study of children and adolescents aged 0–19 years old diagnosed with ASD was undertaken to estimate cumulative health care costs of ASD to the health care system from 2010 to 2019. Cumulative health care costs in 2021 Canadian dollars (CAD) from diagnosis to death or end of observation period were estimated using a consistent estimator based on the inverse probability weighting technique. Cumulative health care costs (and respective 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were estimated for 1, 5 and 10 years post-diagnosis by sex, age group and health service.In 2010, there were 2867 diagnosed cases of ASD; in 2019, the number of incident cases had risen to 6072. The first year (i.e., 1-year) post-diagnosis cost of ASD was $4710.18 CAD (95% CI 4560.28–4860.08); just under a third of costs were for physician services. Total cumulative 5- and 10-year discounted costs were $16,025.95 CAD (15,371.64–16,680.26) and $32,635.76 CAD (28,906.94–36,364.58), respectively. Mean costs were higher for females and older age groups.These results suggest that costs of ASD are high in the year of diagnosis and then increase at a steady rate thereafter. This information will help with future resource planning within the health care sector to ensure individuals with ASD are supported once their diagnosis is established.Results: Few studies have estimated cumulative health care costs post-diagnosis for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Using an incidence-based approach, the objective of this analysis was to estimate cumulative costs of ASD to the Ontario health care system of children and adolescents.Using administrative health records from Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a retrospective, population-based, incident cohort study of children and adolescents aged 0–19 years old diagnosed with ASD was undertaken to estimate cumulative health care costs of ASD to the health care system from 2010 to 2019. Cumulative health care costs in 2021 Canadian dollars (CAD) from diagnosis to death or end of observation period were estimated using a consistent estimator based on the inverse probability weighting technique. Cumulative health care costs (and respective 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were estimated for 1, 5 and 10 years post-diagnosis by sex, age group and health service.In 2010, there were 2867 diagnosed cases of ASD; in 2019, the number of incident cases had risen to 6072. The first year (i.e., 1-year) post-diagnosis cost of ASD was $4710.18 CAD (95% CI 4560.28–4860.08); just under a third of costs were for physician services. Total cumulative 5- and 10-year discounted costs were $16,025.95 CAD (15,371.64–16,680.26) and $32,635.76 CAD (28,906.94–36,364.58), respectively. Mean costs were higher for females and older age groups.These results suggest that costs of ASD are high in the year of diagnosis and then increase at a steady rate thereafter. This information will help with future resource planning within the health care sector to ensure individuals with ASD are supported once their diagnosis is established.Conclusions: Few studies have estimated cumulative health care costs post-diagnosis for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Using an incidence-based approach, the objective of this analysis was to estimate cumulative costs of ASD to the Ontario health care system of children and adolescents.Using administrative health records from Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a retrospective, population-based, incident cohort study of children and adolescents aged 0–19 years old diagnosed with ASD was undertaken to estimate cumulative health care costs of ASD to the health care system from 2010 to 2019. Cumulative health care costs in 2021 Canadian dollars (CAD) from diagnosis to death or end of observation period were estimated using a consistent estimator based on the inverse probability weighting technique. Cumulative health care costs (and respective 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were estimated for 1, 5 and 10 years post-diagnosis by sex, age group and health service.In 2010, there were 2867 diagnosed cases of ASD; in 2019, the number of incident cases had risen to 6072. The first year (i.e., 1-year) post-diagnosis cost of ASD was $4710.18 CAD (95% CI 4560.28–4860.08); just under a third of costs were for physician services. Total cumulative 5- and 10-year discounted costs were $16,025.95 CAD (15,371.64–16,680.26) and $32,635.76 CAD (28,906.94–36,364.58), respectively. Mean costs were higher for females and older age groups.These results suggest that costs of ASD are high in the year of diagnosis and then increase at a steady rate thereafter. This information will help with future resource planning within the health care sector to ensure individuals with ASD are supported once their diagnosis is established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to identify the causal effect of smoking on body mass index (BMI) using data from the Lung Health Study, a randomized trial of smoking cessation treatments. Since nicotine is a metabolic stimulant and appetite suppressant, quitting or reducing smoking could lead to weight gain. Using randomized treatment assignment to instrument for smoking, we estimate that quitting smoking leads to an average long-run weight gain of 1.8-1.9 BMI units, or 11-12 pounds at the average height. Semi-parametric models provide evidence of a diminishing marginal effect of smoking on BMI, while subsample regressions show that the impact is largest for younger individuals, those with no college degree, and those in the lowest quartile of baseline BMI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of employment on elderly men's health. A typical OLS analysis yields a positive relationship between employment and health for individuals in their sixties. Causality, however, is difficult to infer because healthier individuals are more capable of working than others. To overcome this endogeneity problem, this paper exploits the increase in the full retirement age for men in Israel from sixty-five to sixty-seven in 2004. After this change, the employment rate of men in this age bracket jumped significantly compared to the last cohort that was able to retire at sixty-five. Using the new retirement law as an exogenous source of variation in the employment status of elderly men, a significant causal relationship in the opposite direction of the correlation is found: employment at older ages impairs health. These findings are found across a broad array of datasets and health outcomes. The results are significantly stronger among less-educated workers, suggesting that employment in physically demanding occupations is more detrimental to health. Placebo analyses using the years preceding the new retirement regime and other health measures unrelated to employment (e.g., dentist visits) reinforce a causal interpretation of my main findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In volume 36 of this journal, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 Cohort (NLSY97), Yörük (2014) finds that the false ID laws with scanner provision (FSP laws) significantly reduce underage drinking. In a recent paper, Zheng (2018) argues that analyses based on the NLSY97 data fail falsification exercises and uses data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) to estimate the effectiveness of the FSP laws. This paper replies to Zheng (2018) and provides new results from the NLSY97, which show that the FSP laws were effective reducing several indicators of alcohol consumption among minors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Volume 36 of this journal, Yoruk (2014) uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and finds that false ID laws with scanner provisions have large impacts on binge drinking participation, frequency of alcohol consumption and binge drinking frequency among minors. This paper reexamines how false ID laws with scanner provisions affect underage drinking. I first demonstrate that analyses based on NLSY97 data fail falsification exercises testing for significant pre-intervention effects, and that the estimated effects based on these data are highly sensitive to the inclusion of a lead term and to sample selection, which weakens confidence in the large estimated effects reported in Yoruk (2014). I then use data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System to show that false ID laws with scanner provisions have no effect on underage drinking behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and why commuting contributes to our well-being is of considerable importance for transportation policy and planning. This paper analyses the relation between commuting and subjective well-being by considering several cognitive (e.g., satisfaction with family life, leisure, income, work, health) and affective (e.g., happiness, anger, worry, sadness) components of subjective well-being. Fixed-effects models are estimated with German Socio-Economic Panel data for the period 2007–2013. In contrast to previous papers in the literature, according to which commuting is bad for overall life satisfaction, we find no evidence that commuting in general is associated with a lower life satisfaction. Rather, it appears that longer commutes are only related to lower satisfaction with particular life domains, especially family life and leisure time. Time spent on housework, child care as well as physical and leisure activities mediate the association between commuting and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strength model proposes that self-control is a constrained resource whose effectiveness tends to dwindle when an individual attempts to resist multiple sources of temptation at a time. We develop an economic framework for the strength model, and test its consequences in the field by analyzing the appeal of various food types by university students who face time-varying academic self-control demands. Our study utilizes both empirical analysis of actual university-wide transactions data, and a field survey approach with a real snack choice task. Compared to cafeteria purchases, purchase of less healthy fast foods increases during the week of final exams when students’ workloads are most cognitively demanding, compared to the purchase ratio of food sources during other times of the year. Helping to rule out alternative explanations, in the field survey the main robust and significant predictor of choosing an unhealthy snack over a healthy snack is subjects’ self-reported time needed to complete their academic responsibilities during the upcoming week. As combined evidence, these findings are consistent with an economic model of limited self-control in which students choose how to allocate their self-control between academic activities and eating activities. Under such a framework, the overall effectiveness of policies designed to help individuals make beneficial choices in a specific domain could be in practice, adversely affected by limited self-control capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether draft lottery estimates of the causal effects of Vietnam-era military service on schooling vary by an individual's genetic propensity toward educational attainment. To capture the complex genetic architecture that underlies the bio-developmental pathways, behavioral traits and evoked environments associated with educational attainment, we construct polygenic scores (PGS) for respondents in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) that aggregate thousands of individual loci across the human genome and weight them by effect sizes derived from a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of years of education. Our findings suggest veterans with below average PGSs for educational attainment may have completed fewer years of schooling than comparable non-veterans. On the other hand, we do not find any difference in the educational attainment of veterans and non-veterans with above average PGSs. Results indicate that public policies and exogenous environments may induce heterogeneous treatment effects by genetic disposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate a spillover effect of the Japanese public long-term care insurance (LTCI) as a policy to stimulate family caregivers' labor force participation. Using nationally representative data from 1995 to 2013, we apply difference-in-difference propensity score matching to investigate the spillover effect in two periods: before and after the introduction of the LTCI in 2000 and before and after its major amendment in 2006. Our results show that the LTCI introduction has significant and positive spillover effects on family caregivers' labor force participation and the effects vary by gender and age. In contrast, the LTCI amendment is found to have generally negative spillover effects on their labor force participation. We draw attention to these spillover effects, as expanding labor market supply to sustain the economy would be a priority for Japan and other rapidly aging countries in the coming decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we estimate long-run effects of informal care provision on female caregivers' labor market outcomes up to eight years after care provision. We compare a static version, where average effects of care provision in a certain year on later labor market outcomes are estimated, to a partly dynamic version where the effects of up to three consecutive years of care provision are analyzed. Our results suggest that there are significant initial negative effects of informal care provision on the probability to work full-time. The reduction in the probability to work full-time by 4 percentage points (or 2.4-5.0 if we move from point to partial identification) is persistent over time. Short-run effects on hourly wages are zero but we find considerable long-run wage penalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use self-reported health measures, nurse-administered measurements and blood-based biomarkers to examine the concordance between health states of partners in marital/cohabiting relationships in the UK. A model of cumulative health exposures is used to interpret the empirical pattern of between-partner health correlation in relation to elapsed relationship duration, allowing us to distinguish non-causal correlation due to assortative mating from potentially causal effects of shared lifestyle and environmental factors. We find important differences between the results for different health indicators, with strongest homogamy correlations observed for adiposity, followed by blood pressure, heart rate, inflammatory markers and cholesterol, and also self-assessed general health and functional difficulties. We find no evidence of a "dose-response relationship" for marriage duration, and show that this suggests - perhaps counterintuitively - that shared lifestyle factors and homogamous partner selection make roughly equal contributions to the concordance we observe in most of the health measures we examine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: HIV/AIDS has led to increased mortality and morbidity, negatively impacting adult labour especially in HIV/AIDS burdened Sub-Saharan Africa. There has been some exploration of the effects of HIV/AIDS on paid child labour, but little empirical work on children's non-paid child work. This paper provides quantitative evidence of how child and household-level factors affect children's involvement in both domestic and family farm work for households with a person living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) compared to non-PLWHA households using the 2010/2011 Centre for Health Economics Uganda HIV questionnaire Survey. Method: Descriptive analysis and multivariate logistic modelling is used to explore child and household-level factors that affect children's work participation. Results: This research reveals greater demands on the labour of children in PLWHA households in terms of family farm work especially for boys. Results highlight the expected gendered social responsibilities within the household space, with girls and boys engaged more in domestic and family farm work, respectively. Girls shared a greater proportion of household financial burden by working more hours in paid work outside the household than boys. Lastly, the study revealed that a household head's occupation increases children's participation in farm work but had a partial compensatory effect on their involvement in domestic work. Wealth and socio-economic standing is no guarantee to reducing child work. Conclusion: Children from PLWHA households are more vulnerable to child work in family farm work especially boys; and girls are burdened beyond the household space through paid work. Differing perspectives and solutions need to consider the contextual nature of child work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]