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Full-Text Articles in Health Economics

Water And Life. A Cross-Sectional Study On Determinants Of Beverage Consumption And Water Access In One Tribal Community, Christina White Jan 2019

Water And Life. A Cross-Sectional Study On Determinants Of Beverage Consumption And Water Access In One Tribal Community, Christina White

All Master's Theses

Increasingly, poor diet has been shown to be one of the most crucial factors associated with cause of death, even more critical than smoking. Research in the past two decades has consistently linked increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) to the obesity epidemic contributing to a public health crisis all over the United States. Native Americans, among other minority groups, suffer obesity disproportionately from the rest of the US population, yet they continually fail to be included in research on the subject. Traditional research methods, sparse care coverage on reservations, consolidation of unique tribes into one classification, and failure to …


Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Health Behaviors After Three Years, Charles J. Courtemanche, James Marton, Benjamin Ukert, Aaron Yelowitz, Daniela Zapata Apr 2018

Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Health Behaviors After Three Years, Charles J. Courtemanche, James Marton, Benjamin Ukert, Aaron Yelowitz, Daniela Zapata

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

This paper examines the impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – which substantially increased insurance coverage through regulations, mandates, subsidies, and Medicaid expansions – on behaviors related to future health risks after three years. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and an identification strategy that leverages variation in pre-ACA uninsured rates and state Medicaid expansion decisions, we show that the ACA increased preventive care utilization along several dimensions, but also increased risky drinking. These results are driven by the private portions of the law, as opposed to the Medicaid expansion. We also conduct subsample analyses by …


Early Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Health Care Access, Risky Health Behaviors, And Self-Assessed Health, Charles J. Courtemanche, James Marton, Benjamin Ukert, Aaron Yelowitz, Daniela Zapata Aug 2017

Early Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Health Care Access, Risky Health Behaviors, And Self-Assessed Health, Charles J. Courtemanche, James Marton, Benjamin Ukert, Aaron Yelowitz, Daniela Zapata

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

The goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to achieve nearly universal health insurance coverage through a combination of mandates, subsidies, marketplaces, and Medicaid expansions, most of which took effect in 2014. We use data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to examine the impacts of the ACA on health care access, risky health behaviors, and self-assessed health after two years. We estimate difference-in-difference-in-differences models that exploit variation in treatment intensity from state participation in the Medicaid expansion and pre-ACA uninsured rates. Results suggest that the ACA led to sizeable improvements in access to health care in both …


Does Falling Smoking Lead To Rising Obesity?, Jonathan Gruber, Michael D. Frakes Jan 2006

Does Falling Smoking Lead To Rising Obesity?, Jonathan Gruber, Michael D. Frakes

Faculty Scholarship

The strong negative correlation over time between smoking rates and obesity have led some to suggest that reduced smoking is increasing weight gain in the U.S.. This conclusion is supported by the findings of Chou et al. (2004), who conclude that higher cigarette prices lead to increased body weight. We investigate this issue and find no evidence that reduced smoking leads to weight gain. Using the cigarette tax rather than the cigarette price and controlling for non-linear time effects, we find a negative effect of cigarette taxes on body weight, implying that reduced smoking leads to lower body weights. Yet …