Econometric modelling to study dynamic health behaviours at an individual, household, birth cohort a local authority level.

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Smoking prevalence has consistently decreased in the UK since 1974, with the latest official reports estimating that 15.1% of the adult population currently smokes. However, there are still 7.6 million smokers and the latest statistics for England suggest that 77,900 people die from diseases caused by smoking. Therefore, smoking continues to be a major public health problem in the UK, as it is for many of the OECD countries. This research proposes to expand our understanding of smoking trends by using a new conceptual and methodological approach, namely a dynamic approach. This approach uses repeated observations through time, which allows studying changes over time. In the context of smoking behaviour, this will entail studying transitions and persistence between and within smoking states and factors determining this, as well as its consequences from a health economic and policy perspective.The research here proposed will use repeated observations from to four units of analysis to understand: 1) the role of individual and family characteristics as well as the role of social and spatial interactions on the individual's life course smoking decision; 2) the role of cultural norms, risk attitudes and risk preferences in the intergenerational transmission of smoking; 3) the role of birth cohort (or peer interaction) on smoking behaviour in order to expand the work I have been doing with SARG, and 4) the role of space on transitions and persistence between and within smoking status observed through studying smoking behaviour at a Local Authority District level in the UK.Since smoking is increasingly concentrated among certain population subgroups, this research proposes to add subgroup analysis to the empirical models that will be performed. The main subgroups to explore are gender, socioeconomic status and population with mental health issues, but I will explore different definitions of socioeconomic status and mental health to have a deeper understanding about transitions and persistency in smoking behaviour in each of these groups and about smoking inequalities in general. Subgroup analyses will only be performed when the number of observations allow us to do so.Smoking behaviour cannot be studied in isolation from the large number and variety of tobacco control policies that have been implemented in the UK during the last forty years. Hence, this research intends to explore the effect of these policies on smoking behaviour dynamics among individuals, households and aggregate social groups. For policy evaluation models using individual level data, this research will need to account for the fact that individuals can transition between smoking states throughout their life course, thus explore methods to use smoking status as a time-varying exposure. Policy analysis will be based on the latest developments in causal inference, in particular, exploring new matching and weighting techniques when appropriate.The research here proposed will be expanded in two possible ways: first, by providing inputs to SARG, and second, by exploring longitudinal datasets which combine smoking behaviour with other unhealthy lifestyle behaviours such as alcohol misuse, unhealthy diet and sedentarism as contained in the Born in Bradford Study (BiB). By providing inputs to SARG, this research will enable the exploration of further health and economic costs associated to smoking behaviour dynamics, and create specific models for individuals, households, birth cohorts and local authority districts to have a holistic comprehension of smoking as a social, health and economic behaviour. By exploring BiB this research will study the relation between smoking behaviour dynamics at a household level and other unhealthy behaviours in the context of a specific cohort that has been followed since pregnancy.