Labor Market Effects of Obesity, Smoking, and Alcohol Use

Labor Market Effects of Obesity, Smoking, and Alcohol Use

Author: Ilker Dastan

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation analyzes the joint effects of obesity, smoking, and binge drinking on wages and on unemployment by using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data set. The main objective of this study is to show that the effects of these behaviors on wages and unemployment may not be measured accurately in analyses that consider only one or two since these behaviors are correlated or tend to cluster. My results illustrate that failing to include one or more of the health behaviors in wage or unemployment regression would lead to an underestimation of the impact of being obese and an overestimation of the effect of binge drinking for both genders. However, when endogeneity is addressed by employing the Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable (HTIV) method in wage analysis and the multivariate probit method in unemployment analysis, I find that the estimated parameters of obesity or binge drinking are not statistically significantly different whether these behaviors are considered individually or simultaneously. iii This study also conducts several sensitivity analyses. Firstly, the results reveal that the effects of these behaviors are not interactive. Secondly, the paper illustrates that the wage penalties for daily smoking are fairly constant over the wage distribution for both genders, but obesity affects the wages of males and females relatively more at lower quantiles of wages, and there is no wage penalty for being a binge drinker for either gender. Further, it is found that smokers are a heterogeneous group of people. In particular, the wage and unemployment effects of persistent smokers are different than beginning smokers and quitters. Moreover, obesity affects the wages and the likelihood of being unemployed of males only at the extremes of obesity. Lastly, I find evidence of wage penalties for being obese or a smoker in private sector jobs, but in the public sector only male smokers face lower wages.


The impact of early occupational choice on health behaviors

The impact of early occupational choice on health behaviors

Author: Inas Rashad Kelly

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13:

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Abstract: Occupational choice is a significant input into individuals' health investments, operating in a manner that can be either health-promoting or health-depreciating. Recent studies have highlighted the potential importance of initial occupational choice on subsequent outcomes pertaining to morbidity. This study is the first to assess the existence and strength of a causal relationship between initial occupational choice at labor entry and subsequent health behaviors and habits. We utilize the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to analyze the effect of first occupation, as identified by industry category and blue collar work, on subsequent health outcomes relating to body mass index, obesity, alcohol consumption, and physical activity in 1999-2005. Our findings suggest that initial occupations described as craft, operative, and service are related to higher body mass index and obesity later in life, while labor occupations are related to higher probabilities of smoking later in life. Blue collar work early in life is associated with increased probabilities of obesity and smoking, and decreased physical activity later in life, although effects may be masked by unobserved heterogeneity. Few effects are found for the effect of initial occupation on alcohol consumption. The weight of the evidence bearing from various methodologies, which account for non-random unobserved selection, indicates that at least part of this effect is consistent with a causal interpretation. These estimates also underscore the potential durable impact of early labor market experiences on later health


The Economics of Obesity

The Economics of Obesity

Author: Kristian Bolin

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 0762314060

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Focuses on the economics of obesity. This work assesses the impact of food quality, access to fast food, food prices, legislation, and other factors on diet, physical activity, and body weight. It calculates the impact of obesity on hospital costs and examines the externalities imposed by obesity through health insurance.


WHO Expert Committee on Problems Related to Alcohol Consumption

WHO Expert Committee on Problems Related to Alcohol Consumption

Author: WHO Expert Committee on Problems Related to Alcohol Consumption

Publisher: World Health Organization

Published: 2007-09-19

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 9241209445

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Since the last meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on Problems Related to Alcohol Consumption WHO has undertaken a range of major initiatives to support Member States and reinforce the evidence on which policies work to develop global and regional information systems and to promote effective policies in health-care settings. These initiatives provide the background for the continuing role of WHO in supporting Member States to reduce the harm done by alcohol. In resolution WHA58.26 the Fifty-eighth World Health Assembly in 2005 requested the Director-General to report to the Sixtieth World Health Assembly on evidence-based strategies and interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm including a comprehensive assessment of public-health problems caused by harmful use of alcohol and to draw up recommendations for effective policies and interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm . To this end a WHO Expert Committee on Problems Related to Alcohol Consumption was convened with the main objectives of reviewing a range of public health problems attributable to alcohol consumption as well as scientific and empirical evidence of effectiveness of different policy options and providing technical recommendations on effective policies and interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm.


Communities in Action

Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.


Handbook of Health Economics

Handbook of Health Economics

Author: Mark V. Pauly

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2012-01-05

Total Pages: 1149

ISBN-13: 0444535926

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"As a relatively new subdiscipline of economics, health economics has made many contributions to areas of the main discipline, such as insurance economics. This volume provides a survey of the burgeoning literature on the subject of health economics." {source : site de l'éditeur].


Handbook of Socioeconomic Determinants of Occupational Health

Handbook of Socioeconomic Determinants of Occupational Health

Author: Töres Theorell

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2020-08-13

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783030314378

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This anthology provides readers of scientific literature on socioeconomic factors and working conditions with the newest knowledge in this field. Since our world is subjected to constant change in accelerating speed, scientific reviews and updates are needed. Fortunately, research methodology in epidemiology, physiology, psychology and sociology is also developing rapidly and therefore the scientific community can provide politicians and policy makers with increasingly sophisticated and exact descriptions of societal factors in relation to work. The anthology starts in the macro level sphere – with international perspectives and reviews related to working conditions in relation to political change (the fall of the Soviet Union) gender, age, precarious employment, national economy and retirement. Two chapters relate to national policies and activities in international organizations. The second part of the book relates to the meso level sphere – with reviews on social patterns in distributions of psychosocial and physical risks at work in general as well as reviews on noise, shift work, under/overemployment, occupational physical activity, job intensity (which may be a particularly important problem in low income countries), digitization in modern work, climate change, childhood determinants of occupational health in adult years and theoretical models currently used in occupational epidemiology - demand/control, effort/reward, organizational justice, psychosocial safety climate, conflicts, bullying/harassment. This part of the book ends with two chapters on interventions (one chapter on the use of cultural interventions and one on interventions and their evaluation in general) and two chapters on financial aspects of poor/good work environments and evaluations of interventions. In the third part of the book the micro level is addressed. Here mechanisms translating working conditions into physiology are discussed. This starts in general theory relating basic theories regarding energy storage and release to psychosocial theory (extension of demand control theory). It also includes regeneration physiology, autonomic nervous system function, immunology and adverse behaviour. Sections in the Handbook: Macro-level determinants of occupational health: Akizumi Tsutsumi, Meso-level determinants of occupational health: Morten Wahrendorf and Jian Li, Micro-level determinants of occupational health: Bradley J. Wright


Transitions through the Labor Market

Transitions through the Labor Market

Author: Solomon W. Polachek

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2018-08-09

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1787564614

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This volume contains seven original and innovative articles which analyze labor market transitions, how individuals progress from school to work, choose a particular occupation, move up the job ladder, and finally withdraw from the workforce to retirement. Investigations are done by race and gender; and social implications are examined.


Economic Aspects of Obesity

Economic Aspects of Obesity

Author: Michael Grossman

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-05

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 0226310094

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In the past three decades, the number of obese adults in the US has doubled and the number of obese children almost tripled. This text provides a strong foundation for evaluating the costs and benefits of various proposals designed to control obesity rates.