Over the last few decades, health care services in the United States have become more geographically centralized. We … study how the loss of hospital-based obstetric units in over 400 counties affect maternal and infant health via a difference …-in-differences design. We find that closures lead mothers to experience a significant change in birth procedures such as inductions and C …

framework is to estimate the infant health production function from a behavioral model in which health inputs are themselves … effects of endogenous inputs, such as prenatal care, maternal age, and fertility, on birth weight are investigated. I …, maternal age, and fertility. I find that OLS underestimates the gains to prenatal care by a factor of 9.4 for blacks, about 3 …

presents new evidence on the effects of violent crime on pregnancy and infant health outcomes, using unique linked … crimes, and focus on mothers who lived in a home where an assault was reported during their pregnancies. We compare these … mothers to women who lived in a home with an assault that took place shortly after the birth. We find that assaults in the 3rd …