Full Citation
Title: Prior Exposure to Disease, and Late Health and Mortality: Evidence from the Civil War Medical Records
Citation Type: Conference Paper
Publication Year: 2001
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Abstract: This paper examines the effects of socioeconomic factors and local disease environments on the medical experiences of Union army recruits while in service. The results suggest that prior exposure to unfavorable epidemiological environments reduced the chances of contracting and dying from disease while in service. Farmers and rural residents, who were healthier on average prior to enlistment owing to a greater extent of isolation from other people, were more likely to succumb to illness and to be killed by disease than nonfarmers and urban dwellers, respectively. Native recruits were subject to a greater risk of suffering illness than were foreigners who had more chances of exposure to infectious diseases in the course of immigration. More significantly, recruits from a county with a higher child death rate were less likely to contract disease than those from a low-mortality county. A closer examination of cause-specific mortality suggeststhat the most important link between the extent of prior exposure to disease and later health is the different degree of immunity against pathogens. An alternative explanation is that people who lived in an unhealthy environment were better aware of how to avoid contracting disease than those with little experience of disease. The relationship between the extent of exposure to disease prior to enlistment and health while in service was stronger for the regiments organized in the Midwest and Mid Atlantic and weaker for the regiments from New England and the South, presumably reflecting the regional differences in the severity of military missions, the extent of urbanization, and climate.
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Authors: Lee, Chulhee
Conference Name: Conference on Health and Labor Force Participation over the Life Cycle
Publisher Location: Cambridge, MA
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Other
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