The Long-term Impact of Preventative Public Health Programs

Lauren Hoehn-Velasco

The Economic Journal, 2021, vol. 131, issue 634, 797-826

Abstract: This paper estimates the long-term impact of childhood exposure to a preventative public health programme on adult human capital. From 1908 to 1933, local governments in the United States instituted county-level health departments (CHDs) that provided preventative health services geared towards children. This paper estimates the long-term benefits of childhood exposure to this public programme using variation in CHD location, timing and age of exposure. CHD operation before the age of 5 increases men’s later-life earnings by 2% to 5%. Exposed boys not only perform better than later- and never-treated groups, but, after adding household fixed effects, exposed men earn more than their brothers.

Date: 2021
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