The Effect of Health Insurance on Child Nutritional Outcomes. Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Peru

Noelia Bernal Lobato, Joan Costa-Font and Patricia Ritter
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Patricia Ritter: University of Connecticut

No 15490, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the effect of health insurance expansion on nutrition-related children's health outcomes. We exploit quasi-random variation from an insurance expansion targeted at poor households in Peru. We find that access to insurance reduces childhood obesity and exerts positive and economically significant effects on some preventive health care utilization and behaviours, such as children's regular growth checks-ups and deworming treatments, the duration of breastfeeding, and a substitution of foods rich in carbohydrates for other foods rich in proteins. In contrast, we do not find any effect on other outcomes typically related to other interventions.

Keywords: children’s health; obesity; overweight; public health insurance; health behaviors; nutrition; breast-feeding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2022-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-hea, nep-lam and nep-ltv
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Working Paper: The Effect of Health Insurance on Child Nutritional Outcomes. Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Peru (2022)
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