Air Quality and Suicide

Claudia Persico and Dave Marcotte

No 30626, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We conduct the first-ever large-scale study of the relationship between air pollution and suicide using detailed cause of death data from all death certificates in the U.S. between 2003 and 2010. Using wind direction as an instrument for daily pollution exposure, we find that a 1 μg/m3 increase in daily PM2.5 is associated with a 0.49% increase in daily suicides and 0.171 more suicide-related hospitalizations (a 50% increase). Estimates using 2SLS are larger and more robust, suggesting a bias towards zero arising from measurement error. Event study estimates further illustrate that contemporaneous pollution exposure matters more than exposure to pollution in previous weeks.

JEL-codes: I10 Q52 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
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Working Paper: Air Quality and Suicide (2022)
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