TY - JOUR
T1 - Lifecycle effects of a recession on health behaviors
T2 - Boom, bust, and recovery in Iceland
AU - Ásgeirsdóttir, Tinna Laufey
AU - Corman, Hope
AU - Noonan, Kelly
AU - Reichman, Nancy E.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to Victoria Halenda for excellent research assistance and to the Icelandic Research Fund (grant number 130611-051 ) and The Directorate of Health in Iceland (formerly the Public Health Institute of Iceland), which funded the data collection and permitted its usage for this project. We also thank Lysi Ltd. for the data on fish-oil prices. The authors are grateful for helpful comments from participants at the Canadian Center for Health Economics and Temple University Department of Economics seminar series.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/3/1
Y1 - 2016/3/1
N2 - This study uses individual-level longitudinal data from Iceland, a country that experienced a severe economic crisis in 2008 and substantial recovery by 2012, to investigate the extent to which the effects of a recession on health behaviors are lingering or short-lived and to explore trajectories in health behaviors from pre-crisis boom, to crisis, to recovery. Health-compromising behaviors (smoking, heavy drinking, sugared soft drinks, sweets, fast food, and tanning) declined during the crisis, and all but sweets continued to decline during the recovery. Health-promoting behaviors (consumption of fruit, fish oil, and vitamins/minerals and getting recommended sleep) followed more idiosyncratic paths. Overall, most behaviors reverted back to their pre-crisis levels or trends during the recovery, and these short-term deviations in trajectories were probably too short-lived in this recession to have major impacts on health or mortality. A notable exception is for binge drinking, which declined by 10% during the 2 crisis years, continued to fall (at a slower rate of 8%) during the 3 recovery years, and did not revert back to the upward pre-crisis trend during our observation period. These lingering effects, which directionally run counter to the pre-crisis upward trend in consumption and do not reflect price increases during the recovery period, suggest that alcohol is a potential pathway by which recessions improve health and/or reduce mortality.
AB - This study uses individual-level longitudinal data from Iceland, a country that experienced a severe economic crisis in 2008 and substantial recovery by 2012, to investigate the extent to which the effects of a recession on health behaviors are lingering or short-lived and to explore trajectories in health behaviors from pre-crisis boom, to crisis, to recovery. Health-compromising behaviors (smoking, heavy drinking, sugared soft drinks, sweets, fast food, and tanning) declined during the crisis, and all but sweets continued to decline during the recovery. Health-promoting behaviors (consumption of fruit, fish oil, and vitamins/minerals and getting recommended sleep) followed more idiosyncratic paths. Overall, most behaviors reverted back to their pre-crisis levels or trends during the recovery, and these short-term deviations in trajectories were probably too short-lived in this recession to have major impacts on health or mortality. A notable exception is for binge drinking, which declined by 10% during the 2 crisis years, continued to fall (at a slower rate of 8%) during the 3 recovery years, and did not revert back to the upward pre-crisis trend during our observation period. These lingering effects, which directionally run counter to the pre-crisis upward trend in consumption and do not reflect price increases during the recovery period, suggest that alcohol is a potential pathway by which recessions improve health and/or reduce mortality.
KW - Economic crisis
KW - Economic recovery
KW - Health behaviors
KW - Iceland
KW - Recessions
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ehb.2015.11.001
DO - 10.1016/j.ehb.2015.11.001
M3 - Article
C2 - 26687768
AN - SCOPUS:84951800127
SN - 1570-677X
VL - 20
SP - 90
EP - 107
JO - Economics and Human Biology
JF - Economics and Human Biology
ER -