Clear as a bell? Policy stringency and elderly health during Covid-19

Jules Dupuy, Thomas Barnay () and Éric Defebvre

Social Science & Medicine, 2024, vol. 349, issue C

Abstract: This paper investigates how restriction policies have impacted elderly self-assessed health (SAH) in Europe during the pandemic, and how the Covid-19 infection interacts with policy stringency to modulate the SAH deterioration. Using the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) between October 2019 and August 2021, including 9,034 adults aged 50 years and above, alongside with a stringency index from the Oxford's Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), we design both an adjusted probit model and a recursive bivariate probit model to test for endogeneity of Covid-19 infection. Estimations results show a bell curve between stringency and SAH degradation: a deleterious effect of restrictions at low levels of stringency up to a tipping point after which more stringent policies become protective. Covid-19 infection moderates this association. Depending on individuals' initial health, the effect of restrictions is uneven: highly stringent policies become damaging for individuals most likely to enter a vulnerabilization path, for whom the bell curve is thus inverted. Overall, this study shows clear patterns of association between policy stringency and perceived health among older Europeans, and highlights the potential trade-off between targeting as many people as possible, those in poor health or those on the edge of vulnerability.

Keywords: Policy stringency; Self-assessed health; Covid-19 infection; European elderly; Interaction effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C35 H12 I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Working Paper: Clear as a Bell? Policy Stringency and Elderly Health during Covid-19 (2024)
Working Paper: Clear as a Bell? Policy Stringency and Elderly Health during Covid-19 (2024)
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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116878

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