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Title: Childhood Nutrition and Income Status Effects on Health and Economic Outcomes
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2016
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Abstract: This dissertation, “Childhood Nutrition and Income Status Effects on Health and Economic Outcomes”, estimates the effects of childhood nutrition and family income on an adult’s health and social economic status. The relevance of my work lies in the fact that the future rests on today’s children, i.e. evidence shows that intergenerational disparity in health and economic outcomes among adults are reflective of what happened early in their lives. Hence, there is a real need to understand childhood intervention policies or affirmative actions that may affect future economic well-being. The first chapter in my dissertation investigates the long-term effects of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program by ex- amining the adults who had exposure to the program when they were children. Using the difference-in-differences methodology and exploiting the timing of the introduction of the WIC program in the US, our results suggest that children of low-income families who were exposed to the WIC program end up as adults who were healthier and more economically stable. In particular, exposed individuals have 6 percent less probability of having cancer and 0.4 less of number of ADL. In addition, our results suggest that individuals with expo- sure of WIC are more likely to be employed and above the census poverty line. Moreover, full exposure to WIC program also reduces the chance of having mental problems and feel- ing depressed. Males show larger beneficial effects for both physical health outcomes and mental health outcomes. These findings suggest that WIC has long lasting beneficial effects for low-income families. The second chapter contributes to the growing body of research that measures the effects of health shocks, both during childhood and in-utero, in developing countries. Our paper looks the Great Chinese famine . . .
Url: https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/51426
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Authors: Wang, Huixia
Institution: University of Hawaii at Manoa
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Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Health, Other, Population Health and Health Systems
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