In utero exposure to natural disasters and later-life mortality: Evidence from earthquakes in the early twentieth century

Womb to wisdom: Early-life exposure to midwifery laws and later-life disability

Previous research documented that midwifery service quality improvements lead to improving maternal and infants' health outcomes. However, little is known about its influence for later-life outcomes including disability. This paper explores the potential effects of early-life exposure to the establishment of midwifery laws across US states on later-life disability outcomes. Midwifery laws were enacted during the late 19th and early 20th century and required midwives to gain formal education and training to obtain a license in order to legally practice. We use decennial census data over the years 1970-2000 and implement a difference-in-difference method and show that being born in a reform state is associated with significant reductions in various measures of disability, including work disability, cognitive difficulty, ambulatory difficulty, self-care difficulty, and a proxy for severe mental health. We also find significant increases in education, socioeconomic scores, housing wealth, and income. We further discuss the policy implications of the results.

Unequal before death: The effect of paternal education on children's old-age mortality in the United States

A growing body of research documents the relevance of parental education as a marker of family socio-economic status for children's later-life health outcomes. A strand of this literature evaluates how the early-life environment shapes mortality outcomes during infancy and childhood. However, the evidence on mortality during the life course and old age is limited. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the association between paternal education and children's old-age mortality. We use data from Social Security Administration death records over the years 1988-2005 linked to the United States 1940 Census. Applying a family(cousin)- fixed-effects model to account for shared environment, childhood exposures, and common endowments that may confound the long-term links, we find that having a father with a college or high-school education, compared with elementary/no education, is associated with a 4.6- or 2.6-month-higher age at death, respectively, for the child, conditional on them surviving to age 47.

Separating Scarring Effect and Selection of Early-Life Exposures With Genetic Data

Causal life course research examining consequences of early-life exposures has largely relied on associations between early-life environments and later-life outcomes using exogenous environmental shocks. Nonetheless, even with (quasi-)randomized early-life exposures, these associations may reflect not only causation ("scarring") but also selection (i.e., which members are included in data assessing later life). Investigating this selection and its impacts on estimated effects of early-life conditions has, however, often been ignored because of a lack of pre-exposure data. This study proposes an approach for assessing and correcting selection, separately from scarring, using genetic measurements. Because genetic measurements are determined at the time of conception, any associations with early-life exposures should be interpreted as selection. Using data from the UK Biobank, we find that in utero exposure to a higher area-level infant mortality rate is associated with genetic predispositions correlated with better educational attainment and health. These findings point to the direction and magnitude of selection from this exposure. Corrections for this selection in examinations of effects of exposure on later educational attainment suggest underestimates of 26-74%; effects on other life course outcomes also vary across selection correction methods.

Dust to Feed, Dust to Gray: The Effect of in Utero Exposure to the Dust Bowl on Old-Age Longevity

Intensive agriculture and deep plowing caused topsoil erosion and dust storms during the 1930s, affecting agricultural income and land values for years. Given the growing literature on the relevance of in utero and early-life exposures, it is surprising that studies focusing on links between the Dust Bowl and later-life health have produced inconclusive and mixed results. We reevaluate this literature and study the long-term effects of in utero and early-life exposure to topsoil erosion caused by the 1930s Dust Bowl on old-age longevity. Specifically, using Social Security Administration death records linked with the full-count 1940 census, we conduct event studies with difference-in-differences designs to compare the longevity of individuals in high- versus low-topsoil-erosion counties before versus after 1930. We find intent-to-treat reductions in longevity of approximately 0.85 months for those born in high-erosion counties after 1930. We show that these effects are not an artifact of preexisting trends in longevity. Additional analyses suggest that the effects are more pronounced among children raised in farm households, females, and those whose mothers had lower education. We also provide suggestive evidence that reductions in adulthood income are a likely mechanism for the effects we document.

The effect of earthquake experience on pregnancy outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVES

Pregnant women are vulnerable to the health consequences of earthquakes, experiencing stress and limited access to healthcare. Despite the widespread impact of these events, knowledge about their effects on pregnancy outcomes is scarce and inconsistent. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the available evidence, estimate the overall effect, and identify key research gaps about earthquake on pregnant women.

STUDY DESIGN

A comprehensive search of English-language peer-reviewed articles was conducted using PubMed and Web of Science Core Collection. Various combinations of keywords related to earthquakes and pregnancy outcomes were used. Studies comparing quantitative data on pregnancy outcomes between earthquake-affected and unaffected pregnant women were included. Random and fixed-effects models were used to estimate the pooled effect size.

RESULTS

The meta-analysis revealed no significant difference in preterm delivery rates (OR: 1.18; 95 % CI: 0.94-1.47; I2 = 75 %; five studies, 26,365 women) and low birth weight (LBW) infant delivery rates (OR: 1.19; 95 % CI: 0.83-1.71; I2 = 72 %; three studies, 16,127 women) between the earthquake-affected and control groups. However, a statistically significant increase in small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants was observed in the earthquake-affected group (OR: 1.25; 95 % CI: 1.08-1.43; I2 = 0 %; two studies, 10,238 women). Data on miscarriage and stillbirth rates were not suitable for meta-analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

Limited evidence suggests that exposure to earthquakes may be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Further studies are needed to confirm the increased risk of SGA in the affected population and to inform disaster management plans by enhancing our understanding of the adversities associated with earthquake exposure through more comprehensive epidemiologic research.

CenSoc: Public Linked Administrative Mortality Records for Individual-level Research

In the United States, much has been learned about the determinants of longevity from survey data and aggregated tabulations. However, the lack of large-scale, individual-level administrative mortality records has proven to be a barrier to further progress. We introduce the CenSoc datasets, which link the complete-count 1940 U.S. Census to Social Security mortality records. These datasets-CenSoc-DMF (N = 4.7 million) and CenSoc-Numident (N = 7.0 million)-primarily cover deaths among individuals aged 65 and older. The size and richness of CenSoc allows investigators to make new discoveries into geographic, racial, and class-based disparities in old-age mortality in the United States. This article gives an overview of the technical steps taken to construct these datasets, validates them using external aggregate mortality data, and discusses best practices for working with these datasets. The CenSoc datasets are publicly available, enabling new avenues of research into the determinants of mortality disparities in the United States.

Social insurance programs and later-life mortality: Evidence from new deal relief spending

A growing body of research explores the long-run effects of social programs and welfare spending. However, evidence linking welfare support in early life with longevity is limited. We add to this literature by evaluating the effect of in-utero and early-life exposure to the largest increases in welfare spending in the US history under the New Deal programs. Using Social Security Administration death records linked with the 1940-census and spending data for 115 major cities, we show that the spending is correlated with improvements in old-age longevity. A treatment-on-treated calculation focused on a period when spending rose by approximately 1900 percent finds that a 100 percent rise in municipal spending in the year of birth is associated with roughly 3.5 months higher longevity. We show that these effects are not driven by endogenous selection of births, selective fertility, endogenous migration, and sample selection caused by endogenous data linking. Additional analysis suggests that rises in education and socioeconomic status are likely channels of impact.