Abstract
Over the early twentieth century, urban centers adopted full-time public health departments. We show that opening full-time administration had little observable impact on mortality. We then attempt to determine why health departments were ineffective. Our results suggest that achievements in public health occurred regardless of health department status. Further, we find that cities with and without a full-time health department allocated similar per capita expenditures towards health administration. This health department funding also better predicts infant mortality declines. Our conclusions indicate that specific campaigns, public health systems, and funding may have been more meaningful for local health over this era.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 929-953 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Economic Inquiry |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We appreciate the valuable comments and suggestions on this paper from three anonymous referees. We are also thankful for help with this project from James Feigenbaum and David Van Riper. Elizabeth Wrigley‐Field received support from the Minnesota Population Center, which is supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grant number P2C HD041023). 1
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Western Economic Association International.
Keywords
- demographic transition
- health departments
- infant mortality
- local public expenditures
- mortality
- public health
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
