This paper examines how households adjusted their consumption behavior in response to COVID-19 infection risk during the early phase of the pandemic. We use a monthly consumption survey specifically designed by the German Statistical Office covering the second wave of COVID-19 infections from...

We utilize region-day variation in actual vs. forecasted weather conditions (i.e. forecasting errors) to comprehensively investigate the effects of the first heat-health warning system in Japan. We find that heat alerts led to a 17% increase in heat stroke counts. An analysis of mechanisms...

Background Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) prevalence rates are around 5-10% of school-aged children. We test whether medication use for ADHD decreases the likelihood of risky behaviour (sexual behaviour, alcohol, tobacco, and drug consumption) and injuries amongst children aged...

Background Foodborne disease is a great concern to low- and middle-income countries. To prevent illness and death, intervention strategies need to be implemented across the food safety system and should include promoting the adoption of safe food handling practices. The positive association...

The Colombian Ministry of Health's decision to increase the health insurance premium (Capitation Payment Unit) by 5.36% for 2025, close to the inflation rate, has sparked controversy. This adjustment disregards factors that contribute to rising healthcare costs, leading to concerns over the...

Background Obesity has become major public health problem around the world. Lifestyle interventions, Pharmacotherapy and bariatric surgery are the common intervention to reduce weight in clinical practice. This study aims to conduct an economic evaluation of Duodenal-Jejunal Bypass Sleeve (DJBS)...

We propose a theoretical model to study individual lifestyle choices related to calorie intake and physical activity, depending on personal fitness level and body weight. The model builds on the rational eating literature and can generate a variety of behaviors that are consistent with the...

Obesity disease is a significant health issue and has affected millions of people worldwide. Identifying underlying reasons for the onset of obesity risk in its early stage has become challenging for medical practitioners. The growing volume of lifestyle data related to obesity has made it...

India consistently ranks among the countries with the highest levels of ambient air pollution worldwide. At the same time, it faces significant challenges in neonatal health, with newborns having low average birth weights and a high incidence of being born within the low birth weight (LBW) and...

This paper investigates the effect of partner unemployment on individual physical health. Using data from two nationally representative Italian surveys of households and employing partial identification to address endogenous selection into unemployment, we show that the impact of partner...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to revise traditional security strategies for international sporting events and has brought public health issues to the forefront as a systemic component. The study aimed to address the transformation of security management strategies at mass...

I combine multiple rounds of geo-coded household survey data with a globally gridded climate dataset to quantify the impact of heat exposure on child disease incidence in sub-Saharan Africa. I construct hour-degree bins of temperature exposure and find that 10 additional hours of exposure to...

We examine the causal impact of air pollution during pregnancy on the early health of newborns using daily data from environmental monitoring stations in Wuhan and data from the Wuhan Birth Cohort Studies (WBCS). Results show that air pollution during pregnancy significantly damages the early...

We study the effects of the largest adverse health shock in modern medicine - the 1918 influenza pandemic - on subsequent shifts in health-related attitudes and behavior and future-oriented policies. Our analysis builds upon self-digitized, individual-level death-register excerpts, vaccination...

In recent years, the actuarial literature involving machine learning in insurance pricing has flourished. However, most actuarial machine learning research focuses on property and casualty insurance, while using such techniques in health insurance is yet to be explored. In this paper, we discuss...

In 2013, China introduced the ambitious Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (APPCAP) targeting ambient fine particle (PM2.5) pollution. Using panel data covering 239 countries and territories worldwide, from 2000 to 2019, I provide quasi-experimental estimates of nationwide...

The consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in India leads to significant public health and economic challenges, with 1.6 million deaths and 49.3 million disability-adjusted life years lost annually. These products are major risk factors for noncommunicable...

Rahman et al. (2021) study the correlation between mental health and food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. They report that food insecurity increases in the sample and that this is associated with increased stress. This result is not reproducible from the author-provided...

Rahman et al. (2021) study the correlation between mental health and food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. They report that food insecurity increases in the sample and that this is associated with increased stress. This result is not reproducible from the author-provided...

This study contributes to the growing body of evidence on the implementation of taxes on high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) products in EU Member States. It provides a foundation for initial discussions with EU Member States on advancing HFSS taxes in general and particularly sugar-sweetened...

This paper uses restricted-access data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey to assess whether the sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax levied in Seattle in 2018 led to declines in body mass index (BMI) and the rate of obesity. We implement an event-study design which compares...

Patient selection remains a major challenge in evaluating hospital performance. We exploit the quasi-random assignment of patients to hospitals, based on a rotation schedule between hospitals in the Upper Austrian capital of Linz. In the instrumental variable (IV) framework, we use high-quality...