TY  - JOUR
AU  - Clay,Karen
AU  - Troesken,Werner
TI  - Deprivation and Disease in Early Twentieth-Century America
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12111
PY  - 2006
Y2  - March 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12111
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12111.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Karen Clay
Heinz College
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Tel: 412/268-4197
Fax: 412/268-7357
E-Mail: kclay@andrew.cmu.edu

Werner Troesken
Department of Economics
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: 412/648-2823
Fax: 412/648-9074
E-Mail: troesken@pitt.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2006-03-27
AB  - This paper explores how early life exposure to poverty and want adversely affects later life health outcomes.  In particular, it examines how exposure to crowded housing conditions and impure drinking water undermines long-term health prospects and increases the risk of age-related pathologies such as cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, and stroke.  Exploiting city-level data from early-twentieth century America, evidence is presented that cities with unusually high rates of typhoid fever in 1900 had elevated rates of heart and kidney disease fifteen years later; also cities with unusually high rates of tuberculosis in 1900 had elevated rates of cancer and stroke fifteen years later. The estimated coefficients suggest that eradicating typhoid fever (through water purification) and tuberculosis (through improved housing and nutrition) would have reduced later death rates from heart disease, cancer, stroke, and kidney disease by 23 to 35 percent.
ER  -