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Title: Historical Migration and Contemporary Health
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: We show that migration during the last 500 years induced differences in contemporary health outcomes. The theory behind our analysis is related to the risks of premature death, and builds on three physiological facts. First, vitamin D deficiency is directly associated with higher risk of all-cause mortality. Second, the ability of humans to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight (i.e., ultraviolet radiation, UV-R) declines with skin pigmentation. Third, skin pigmentation is the result of an evolutionary compromise between its costs and its benefits (e.g. higher risk of vitamin D deficiency and lower risk of skin cancer), which explains why natives of high UV-R regions became more intensely pigmented. In accord with these physiologycal premises, when individuals indigenous to high UV-R regions migrate to low UV-R regions, the risk of vitamin D deficiency rises markedly, and with it the risk of premature death. We develop a measure that allows us to explore the aggregate health consequences of migration, as caused by the potential risk of vitamin D deficiency induced by historical population flows. Our results show that a higher potential risk of vitamin D deficiency induced by migration between the years 1500 and 2000 holds strong explanatory power vis-à-vis aggregate indicators of health today, across countries, and across US states.
Url: http://www.econ.ku.dk/Dalgaard/Work/VitaminDv4_July2017.pdf
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Authors: Andersen, Thomas, B; Dalgaard, Carl-Johan; Selaya, Pablo; Skovsgaard, Christian, V
Publisher: University of Southern Denmark
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Health, Migration and Immigration
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