The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Subsequent Health Outcomes: An Analysis of SIPP Data

The fetal-origins hypothesis has recently achieved "textbook" status in medicine (e.g. Rudolph, 2003 and Warrell, 2003) and is drawing increased attention for social sciences (e.g., Case, Fertig and Paxton, 2005; Currie and Moretti, 2005). The hypotheses holds that disruptions to fetal nut...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American economic review Vol. 95; no. 2; pp. 258 - 262
Main Authors Almond, Douglas, Bhashkar Mazumder
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Economic Association 01.05.2005
Subjects
Age
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Bias
Cardiovascular disease
Cohort Studies
Data analysis
Diabetes
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Female
Health economics
Health outcomes
Health policy
Health Status
Health surveys
Health technology assessment
History, 20th Century
Humans
Hypotheses
Impact analysis
Infections
Influenza
Influenza, Human - epidemiology
Interwar years
Long term
Medical research
Medical sociology
Nutrition
Pandemics
Pandemics - history
Pregnancy
Prenatal development
Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects - epidemiology
Recent Developments in Health Economics
Self report
Studies
U.S.A
United States
Viruses
Walking
Young adults
United States > US
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Summary:The fetal-origins hypothesis has recently achieved "textbook" status in medicine (e.g. Rudolph, 2003 and Warrell, 2003) and is drawing increased attention for social sciences (e.g., Case, Fertig and Paxton, 2005; Currie and Moretti, 2005). The hypotheses holds that disruptions to fetal nutrition can exert persistent effects on subsequent health. Recent research has used the 1918 Influenza Pandemic as a natural experiment for studying the effects of fetal health (Almond, 2005). In contrast to typical influenza strains, the 1918 virus disproportionately affects young adults, approximately one-third of pregnant women contracted the debilitating virus. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), this study finds that cohorts in utero during the Pandemic exhibit impaired health outcomes relative to cohorts born a few months earlier or later. That these patterns are manifest 65-80 years after the Pandemic suggests that changes to fetal health can have life-long effects.
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ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/000282805774669943