Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Essays On The Impacts Of Extreme Natural Events On Health, Moumita Ghorai

Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three chapters that examine how extreme events impact health outcomes such as short-term illness, body mass index, probability of pre-term birth, and mortality. The study reveals the severe consequences of these events and shows that certain groups within a particular country are affected disproportionately.

The first chapter examines whether National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), India’s flagship workfare program, mitigates adverse health outcomes of a drought. This paper contributes to a growing area of research on adaptations to climate change. Using Indian Human Development Survey (2004-2005 and 2010-2011), a nationally representative panel data set, and high resolution …

How Effective Are African Health Systems? An Analysis Of Guinea, Liberia And Sierra Leone, Kale A. Adote

HON499 projects

While developed countries in the rest of the world have found themselves overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic, in comparison, Africa has been minimally affected given that it has reported lower case counts since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. However, given the destructive potential of this pandemic, this raises the question: how prepared are health systems in Africa to face major outbreaks? To answer this question, this article explored the state of health systems and epidemic preparedness in African countries using Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as case studies. Given that these three countries were epicentre countries during …

An Analysis Of The Economic Barriers To Oral Healthcare Access In Omaha, Nebraska, Elias Witte

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Existing research regarding the analysis of the distribution of oral healthcare practitioners has been conducted across large metropolitan areas within the United States in order to determine the magnitude of healthcare resource deficits. Such research has demonstrated significant deficits in access to oral healthcare predominantly in lower-income urban areas. Consequently, patients in these socioeconomically disadvantaged areas have less access to routine oral care, which impacts their overall health and well-being. While there is an abundance of studies examining this issue in other localities across the country, there is a lack of information regarding the distribution of oral healthcare practitioners in …

The Effect Of Fast Food Restaurants On Type 2 Diabetes Rates, Grace Bailey

CMC Senior Theses

This paper conducts an analysis of county level data to determine the effect of fast food restaurants on type 2 diabetes rates. Due to endogeneity concerns with respect to the location of fast food restaurants, this paper follows the work of Dunn (2010) and uses the number of interstate exits in a given county to serve as an instrument for fast food restaurants. The strength of the instrument, which is theoretically and empirically tested in this paper, imposes some restraints on the interpretation of the findings. Using the Two-Stage Least Squares estimation method, I find that the presence of fast …

The Role Of Behavior In The Effectiveness Of Indoor Air Pollution Interventions: Results From The Artis Study, Madison J. Cole

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using panel data from a randomized placebo-controlled trial of a wood stove changeout and air filter interventions, this study addresses the role of behavior in the efficacy of air quality interventions. The effectiveness of an intervention in improving air quality depends on how households respond to and use them. Two important responses are whether the target population complies with the requirements of the intervention and whether users adjust other behaviors that can affect air quality.

This paper’s results are consistent with prior studies in finding that in the absence of interventions, a number of behaviors can affect indoor air pollution, …

Three Essays On The Social Determinants Of Early Childhood Health And Development, Andrew Barenberg

Doctoral Dissertations

This three-paper dissertation examines the social determinants of early childhood and in-utero health. The first chapter examines the impact of early childhood stunting on educational outcome in Tanzania. Using the extent of third-trimester overlap with the Tanzania hunger season to create an exogenous variation in stunting, I find that a one standard deviation stunting decreases educational achievement by .88 school years compared to a child's siblings. A placebo group not affected by the hunger season is used to confirm that in-utero nutrition deprivation is the cause of the education differences. The second paper utilizes the food price shocks and price …