Does Commuting Mode Choice Impact Health?

Nikita Jacob, Luke Munford, Nigel Rice and Jennifer Roberts
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Luke Munford: School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

No 2019023, Working Papers from The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics

Abstract: Governments around the world are encouraging people to switch away from sedentary modes of travel towards more active modes, including walking and cycling. The aim of these schemes is to improve population health and to reduce emissions. There is considerable evidence on the latter, yet relatively little on the former. This paper investigates the impact of mode choice on measures of physical and mental health as well as satisfaction with health. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study from 2009-2016, our empirical strategy exploits changes in the mode of commute to identify health outcome responses. Individuals who change modes are matched with those whose mode remains constant. Overall we find that mode switches affect both physical and mental health. Specifically we find an increase in physical health for women and an increase in mental health for both genders, when switching from car to active travel. In contrast, both men and women who switch from active travel to car are shown to experience a significant reduction in their physical health and health satisfaction, and a decline in their mental health when they change from active to public transport.

Keywords: Commuting mode; health; panel data econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-tre and nep-ure
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https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/economics/research/serps First version, December 2019 (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Does commuting mode choice impact health? (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:shf:wpaper:2019023

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