Search

The attitudes of the general British population towards Muslims changed post 2001, and this change led to a significant increase in Anti-Muslim discrimination. We use this exogenous attitude change to estimate the causal impact of increased discrimination on a range of objective and subjective health outcomes. The difference-in-differences estimates indicate that discrimination worsens blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI and self-assessed general health. Thus, discrimination is a potentially important determinant of the large racial and ethnic health gaps observed in many countries. We also investigate the pathways through which discrimination impacts upon health, and find that discrimination has a negative effect on employment, perceived social support, and health-producing behaviours. Crucially, our results hold for different control groups and model specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the causal impact of education on chronic health conditions by exploitng two UK education policy reforms. The first reform raised the minimum school leaving age in 1972 and affected the lower end of the educational attainment distribution. The second reform is a combination of several policy changes that affected the broader educational attainment distribution in the early 1990s. Results are consistent across both reforms: an extra year of schooling has no statistically identifiable impact on the prevalence of most chronic health conditions. The exception is that both reforms led to a statistically significant reduction in the probability of having diabetes, and this result is robust across model specifications. However, even with the largest survey samples available in the UK, we are unable to statistically rule out moderate size educational effects for many of the other health conditions, although we generally find considerably smaller effects than OLS associations suggest., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Although mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression are common, there is little research on whether individuals in poor mental health react differently from others to financial incentives. This paper exploits an experiment from the UK Understanding Society Innovation Panel to assess how the participation response to randomly-assigned financial incentives differs by mental health status. We find that individuals in good mental health are more likely to respond when offered a higher financial incentive, whereas those in poor mental health are indifferent to the increased incentive. We find no comparable differences for physical health., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The relationship between health and work is frequently investigated using self-assessments of disability from social surveys. The complication is that respondents may overstate their level of disability to justify non-employment and welfare receipt. This study provides new evidence on the existence and magnitude of justification bias by exploiting a novel feature of a large longitudinal survey: each wave respondents are asked identical disability questions twice; near the beginning and end of the face-to-face interview. Prior to answering the second disability question, respondents are asked a series of questions that increase the salience of their employment and welfare circumstances. Justification bias is identified by comparing the variation between the two measures within-individuals over time, with the variation in employment status over time. Results indicate substantial and statistically significant justification bias; especially for men and women who receive disability pensions., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This paper estimates the long-term health effects of Vietnam-era military service using Australia's National conscription lotteries for identification. Our primary contribution is the quality and breadth of our health outcomes. We use several administrative sources, containing a near-universe of records on mortality (1994-2011), cancer diagnoses (1982-2008), and emergency hospital presentations (2005-2010). We also analyse a range of self-reported morbidity indicators (2006-2009). We find no significant long-term effects on mortality, cancer or emergency hospital visits. In contrast, we find significant detrimental effects on a number of morbidity measures. Hearing and mental health appear to be particularly affected., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This paper uses data from the 1970 British Cohort Study to quantify the intergenerational persistence of mental health, and the long-run economic costs associated with poor parental mental health. We find a strong and significant intergenerational correlation that is robust to different covariate sets, sample restrictions, model specifications and potential endogeneity. Importantly, the intergenerational persistence is economically relevant, with maternal mental health associated with lasting effects on the child's educational attainment, future household income and the probability of having criminal convictions. These results do not disappear after controlling for children's own childhood and adulthood mental health., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)