Doctoral Dissertation Research: Does Money Beget Health? A Search for Exogenous Variation

博士论文研究：金钱带来健康吗？寻找外生变异几个世纪以来，良好的健康和经济资源往往是齐头并进的。但是，这种积极的联系是否反映了一种真正的因果关系？那么，不同因果方向的相对重要性是什么呢？此外，社会经济地位的哪些组成部分(如收入、职业等)对健康影响最大？本文通过隔离社会经济地位的组成部分独立于健康和相关因素而变化的独特实例来解决这些问题(即，隔离社会经济地位的外生变异)。强调这种外生差异将有助于隔离社会经济地位的不同方面对健康的因果影响--主要是通过消除对社会经济影响的其他解释(例如，消除社会经济影响的证据确实是健康原因或未观察到的变异的结果的可能性)。本项目将通过检查公司倒闭、搬迁或关闭工厂后的劳动力转移，来考虑独立于初始健康状况的失业如何影响后续的健康状况。分解失业的不同方面的影响将进一步揭示社会经济地位的不同组成部分(例如收入和职业)如何影响健康。本项目还将通过利用美国失业保险计划的州际差异来考虑转移收入的外生差异如何影响健康。最后，本项目将着眼于遗产产生的财富突然增加，考虑财富和家庭背景可能影响健康的不同方式。这篇论文的数据将基于收入动态小组研究中包含的具有全国代表性的美国家庭纵向样本。将使用各种统计建模技术生成该项目的估计数。这项研究的更广泛的影响包括加深我们对生物和环境如何共同作用以将个人划分为社会和健康等级的理解。本着这一精神，该项目将直接解决有关社会职位的健康后果的问题，并间接解决有关社会职位的健康因素的问题。这项研究的结果将会引起许多学者和政策制定者的兴趣。经济学家、流行病学家和医学界成员可能会对这项研究的结果感兴趣。这项研究的发现也将说明公共卫生政策中的关切。对社会经济地位对健康的因果影响的估计将解决人们对减少经济不平等是否以及如何缩小健康差距的关切。

Doctoral Dissertation Research: Does Money Beget Health? A Search for Exogenous VariationFor centuries now, good health and economic resources have tended to go hand-in-hand. But, does this positive association reflect a true causal relationship? And, what is the relative importance of alternative causal directions? Further, which components of socioeconomic status (e.g. income, occupation, etc) matter the most to health? This dissertation addresses such questions by isolating unique instances in which components of socioeconomic status vary independently of health and associated factors (i.e., isolating exogenous variation in socioeconomic status). Emphasizing such exogenous variation will help isolate causal effects of different aspects of socioeconomic status on health-primarily by eliminating alternative interpretations of socioeconomic effects (e.g. eliminating the possibility that evidence of socioeconomic effects are really the result of health causation or unobserved variation).This project will consider how unemployment that is independent of initial health status affects subsequent health status though an examination of labor displacement that follows a company going out of business, relocating, or closing a plant. Decomposing the effects of different aspects of unemployment will further reveal how separate components of socioeconomic status (e.g. earnings and occupation) affect health. This project will also consider how exogenous differences in transfer income may shape health by exploiting interstate variation in unemployment insurance programs in the U.S. Finally, focusing on sudden increases in wealth generated by inheritances, this project will consider the distinct ways in which wealth and family background may affect health. Data for this dissertation will be based on a nationally representative, longitudinal sample of American families contained within the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Estimates for this project will be generated using a variety of statistical modeling techniques. The broader impacts of this research involve deepen our understanding of how biology and environment work together to sort individuals into social and health hierarchies. In this vein, the project will directly address questions about the health consequences of social positions, and indirectly address questions about the health factors responsible for social positions. Results from this research will be of interest to a variety of scholars and policy makers. Economists, epidemiologists, and members of the medical community will likely be interested in findings from this study. Findings from this research will also speak to concerns within public health policy. Estimates of the causal impact of socioeconomic status on health will address concerns of whether and how reducing economic inequality may reduce health disparities.