Due to COVID-19, 33 states banned elective medical procedures, and 13 of these states included surgical abortions. We collected street addresses of abortion clinics and linked them to SafeGraph's data on counts of visitors. We found a 32 percent decrease in clinics visits in February-May of 2020...

Some commentators estimate that up to a third of U.S. medical spending may be wasted. This study focuses on the decision to hospitalize elderly Medicare patients who present at the emergency room (ER) with respiratory conditions. Failing to hospitalize sick patients could have dire consequences....

Emergency department visits are costly to providers and to patients. We use the Flint water crisis to test if an increase in office visits reduced avoidable emergency room visits. In September 2015, the city of Flint issued a lead advisory to its residents, alerting them of increased lead levels...

We examine the multigenerational impacts of legalized abortion in the United States by analyzing how early-life exposure to this policy shift affects birth outcomes in the next generation. Using event study and two-way fixed effects models, we link maternal early-life exposure to legal abortion...

Evidence on cannabis legalization's effects on mental health remains scarce, despite both rapid increases in cannabis use and an ongoing mental health crisis in the United States. We use granular geographic data to estimate medical cannabis dispensary availability's effects on self-reported...

Training to become a physician involves long work hours that can be physically demanding, particularly for surgeons. Are birth outcomes of physician mothers affected as a result? Using Texas birth data from 2007-2014, we compared birth outcomes between physicians and another highly educated...

We estimate the causal impact of access to means-tested public health insurance coverage (Medicaid) on health outcomes and recidivism for those recently released from incarceration. To do so, we leverage a policy change in South Carolina that allowed simplified Medicaid re-enrollment for...

Individuals of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) ancestry in the US have been targeted by anti-immigrant and counterterrorism policies and have been the focus of vitriolic political rhetoric. Despite this, lack of data identifying MENA individuals has prevented systematic evaluation of the...

We study the effects of the temporary federal paid sick leave mandate that became effective April 1st, 2020 on 'social distancing,' as proxied by individuals' physical mobility behavior gleaned from cellular devices. The national paid leave policy was implemented in response to the COVID-19...

This study quantifies the effect of state reopening policies on daily mobility, travel, and mixing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. We harness cell device signal data to examine the effects of the timing and pace of reopening plans in different states. We quantify the increase in mobility...