Healthy living in hard times.

By Christopher J. Ruhm. Journal of Health Economics, 2005

812 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using microdata for adults from 1987 to 2000 years of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), I show that smoking and excess weight decline during temporary economic downturns while leisure-time physical activity rises. The drop in tobacco use occurs disproportionately among heavy smokers, the fall in body weight among the severely obese and the increase in exercise among those who were completely inactive. Declining work hours may provide one reason why behaviors become healthier, possibly by increasing the non-market time available for lifestyle investments. Conversely, there is little evidence of an important role for income reductions. The overall conclusion is that changes in behaviors supply one mechanism for the procyclical variation in mortality and morbidity observed in recent research.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f355cafccbbc22ab03796def8726159cee7ba46a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

In Health

Citations in the corpus

Do Minimum Wage Increases Influence Worker Health? (2017, neutral): “Additional research in this area provides similarly mixed findings (Ruhm 2005; Xu and Kaestner 2010; Charles and DeCicca 2008; Arkes 2012; Arkes 2007).”
Identity‐Based Motivation: Implications for Health and Health Disparities (2014, background): “…via its impact on the likelihood of unemployment, work-related choice and control (Adler & Rehkopf, 2008), job insecurity (Burgard, Brand, & House, 2009), vacillation in work hours with economic up and downswings (Ruhm, 2005), and higher rates of unfair treatment at work (Williams et al., 2012).”
Impatience, Incentives and Obesity (2015, neutral): “Food prices are a present cost, so as prices fall, less-patient consumers respond with a larger increase in food consumption than do more7Schar¤ (2009) shows that the caloric consumption of obese individuals is less responsive to nutritional information than that of other individuals, which he argue”
Why the Poor Get Fat: Weight Gain and Economic Insecurity (2009, background): “However, previous research—most notably Ruhm (2000, 2005)—has examined the direct effect of regional economic variables on individual weight.”
The Impacts of International Migration on Remaining Household Members: Omnibus Results from a Migration Lottery Program (2009, background): “Evidence from developed countries suggests that people adopt healthier lifestyles when income declines, such as during recessions (Ruhm, 2005).”
Transgender Status, Gender Identity, and Socioeconomic Outcomes in the United States (2020, methodology): “Second, we refer readers to several economics publications that have examined these same economic variables in the BRFSS either as outcomes (e.g., Evans and Garthwaite 2014) or as regressors (Ruhm 2005).”
Economic causes and consequences of obesity. (2005, background): “Ruhm (61, 63) showed that obesity becomes more prevalent during macroeconomic upturns, in part because higher time costs lead to reductions in health-preserving activities such as exercise.”
The Short-Term Mortality Consequences of Income Receipt (2011, methodology): “To demonstrate the significance of this increase, we select a sample of 15,774 adults aged 65 to 69 using data from the 1987- 1990 National Health Interview Surveys Multiple Cause of Death (NHIS/MCOD) data file.56 We regress a dummy variable that equals one if a person died within 365 days of the…”
Supersizing Supercenters? The Impact of Wal-Mart Supercenters on Body Mass Index and Obesity (2011, background): “28 Ruhm (2000, 2005) documents a negative relationship between unemployment rate and obesity.”