The Effects of an Epidemic on Prenatal Investments, Childhood Mortality and Health of Surviving Children

Patricia I. Ritter and Ricardo Sanchez
Additional contact information
Patricia I. Ritter: University of Connecticut
Ricardo Sanchez: Ministry of Education in Peru

No 2019-15, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: The potential death toll from an epidemic is larger than the number of deaths directly associated with the infection. In this study, we find that prenatal exposure to a cholera epidemic in Peru increased childhood mortality and that surviving children were more likely to be under-weight and to suffer from diarrhea. We further find that a significant part of this mortality happened during the first day of life, and that prenatal exposure to cholera decreased prenatal care and institutional deliveries, suggesting that the mortality and possibly other longer-term effects were partially driven by a reduction in prenatal investments.

Keywords: childhood mortality; parental investments; epidemics; in-utero; prenatal care; institutional deliveries; infectious diseases; diarrheal diseases; cholera (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J10 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2019-08, Revised 2021-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2019-15R3.pdf Full text (revised version) (application/pdf)
https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2019-15.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:2019-15

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics University of Connecticut 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1063 Storrs, CT 06269-1063. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark McConnel ().