The 21st century has been a period of rising inequality in both income and health. In this study, we find that geographic inequality in mortality for midlife Americans increased by about 70 percent from 1992 to 2016. This was not simply because states such as New York or California benefited...

What are the insights from historical pandemics for policymaking today? We carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of pandemics that occurred since the Industrial Revolution and prior to Covid-19. Our literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and September 2023,...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the strain of novel coronavirus that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that generates high number of infected cases and deaths worldwide. The fundamental question in this field of research is how countries can reduce...

By exploiting exogenous variations in air quality during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, we estimate the effect of air pollution on mortality in China. We find that a 10 percent decrease in PM10 concentrations reduces the monthly standardized all-cause mortality rate by 8 percent. Men and women...

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death worldwide according to the WHO. This paper estimates the effect of TB dispensaries, designed to prevent the spread of the disease before the advent of modern medicine. Our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that the roll-out of the TB...

By exploiting exogenous variations in air quality during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, we estimate the effect of air pollution on mortality in China. We find that a 10 percent decrease in PM₁₀ concentrations reduces the monthly standardized all-cause mortality rate by 8 percent. Men and women...

This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic as a natural experiment to examine whether air pollution affects susceptibility to infectious disease. The empirical analysis combines the sharp timing of the pandemic with large cross-city differences in baseline pollution measures based on coal-fired...

The globally surging demand for electricity increases coal consumption and sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution. However, the causal evidence of the effects of SO2 pollution on health is scarce, especially in developing countries. We leverage a large national environmental policy implemented to reduce...

Individuals should be entitled to a "fair innings", and the primary role of health systems should be the prevention of premature mortality. In India, 66 percent of all deaths are premature. The burden of premature mortality has shifted from child (0-5 years) to adult (30-69 years) level over the...

India is ranked fairly high amongst the countries in terms of out of pocket expenditure by its citizens on health and education. India is ranked 134th on the Human Development Index (2011 ranking). Public expenditure on human development is given increasing emphasis but the desired results...