Health Economics Commons^™

The Impact Of Ambient Air Quality On Asthma Outcomes In California, Abigail Obour

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study investigates the relationship between ambient air quality and asthma-related health outcomes in California, focusing on emergency department visits and hospitalizations from 2005 to 2022. Despite California’s strict air quality standards, individuals still face significant pollution challenges contributing to poor respiratory health, particularly among vulnerable populations. Therefore, this study looks at how fine particulate matter (PM2.5) affects asthma outcomes using panel data from 37 counties. A fixed effects regression model is employed to control for unobserved heterogeneities that are constant over time but vary across individual counties, ensuring robust estimates of the impact of pollution on health outcomes. This …

Certificate Of Need Laws' Effect On Provisions Of Uncompensated Care, Connor Anthony Mostek

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Certificate of need (CON) laws are regulations that require healthcare facilities to seek permission from a state government board to enter a market or expand/modify their established business. Proponents of CON laws claim that, among other things, CON laws protect hospitals and other healthcare providers from competition, allowing them to charge private or fully insured patients more in order to use the profits to “cross-subsidize” free care for low-income and uninsured patients. By employing an unbalanced panel dataset on hospital cost reports for the years 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2019, this study finds that there is no strong evidence that …

Analyzing The Accessibility Of Sports Facilities In Missoula, Montana, Quinn T. Peacock

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The purpose of this survey is to understand the qualitative value of the public field inventory that will be analyzed based on quantitative data. We want to understand not only the assumed factors from data that affect rec-participants behavior, but what the individuals have to say about it for themselves as well.

Pharmacy-Based Immunization Laws And Adolescent Well-Child Checkup Tradeoffs: Results From The Nis-Teen 2019, Teigan Avery

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Pharmacy-based immunization (PBI) has been heralded as a barrier-reducing way to immunize Americans and reach public health targets. PBI programs vary by state; some states prohibit vaccinating children in pharmacies while others allow pharmacists to prescribe and immunize persons of any age. There is concern that liberal PBI programs may boost vaccination rates at the cost of well-child visits. Parents may see PBI as an alternative to preventive well-check visits at a doctor’s office rather than as a complement, particularly for adolescents. This paper estimates the effect of state vaccination policies on individual adolescent 11–12-year-old well-checks using probit regression for …

Protecting Life And Lung: Protected Areas Affect Fine Particulate Matter And Respiratory Hospitalizations In The Brazilian Amazon Biome., Derek Michael Sheehan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I assessed the impacts of upwind protected area coverage on local respiratory health within the Brazilian Amazon. A hypothesized mechanism is the legal prohibition of human ignited fires within protected areas, reducing particulate matter pollution, impacting respiratory health downwind. The connection between fires and respiratory diseases in the Amazon is well established (Smith et al. 2014; Rangel and Vogl 2019; Rocha and Sant’anna 2020). What is not well understood is the potential that government policies aimed at preventing ecosystem loss may also promote health and wellbeing, combining the UN sustainable development goals 3 and 15. Protected areas currently dominate government …

Hiit-Ing The Books: University Student Time Allocation And Exercise, Teigan Nicole Avery

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

A growing body of economic literature examines irrational human behavior in a variety of contexts, including exercise habits (Duckworth and Milkman 2019). Based on this research, small interventions known as nudges have been introduced, sometimes significantly altering how individuals behave. This study focuses on a specific population’s behavior to nudge: university student’s exercise habits. Despite the benefits of physical exercise, such as a 40-50% reduction in all-cause mortality, only half of the students surveyed by this study met CDC suggested exercise requirement of 5 hours per week—5% responded that they do not exercise at all (Morris et al. 1953). This …

Drug Policy: The Effect Of Medical Marijuana On Opioid Consumption During The Us Opioid Epidemic, Jonathon David Knudson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The introduction and subsequent over-prescribing of extended-release opioids in the United States resulted in a large rise in both addiction and overdose. Recognition and regulation of these new drugs as addictive did little to control the supply of opioids to Americans while Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and Abuse Deterrent reformulations had limited effect to control the problem. Simultaneously, states like Michigan and Rhode Island legalized medical marijuana through voter referenda opening the door for a new approach to pain management. Recent research has found medical marijuana has proven an effective treatment for conditions such as chronic pain and PTSD and …

The Relationship Between Commuting Habits And Mortality Rates In The United States, Samuel Earl Supplee-Niederman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In recent years, policy makers have invested in public transportation and infrastructure to promote walking and cycling to work. There is also a large body of economic research that has found mortality rates increase during economic expansions. While there has been a number of epidemiological studies that investigate the impact of commuting mode choice on individual health outcomes, there is a lack of research on the aggregate health effects of alternative transportation methods, such as biking, walking, or using public transportation. This paper uses a fixed-effect model to investigate the impact of an increase in total employment on mortality rates, …

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, …