Build Back Better Health: Public Housing and the late-19th Century Mortality Transition
Speaker: Johann Ohler (LSE, Department of Economic History)
Time: Wednesday (29/01/2025) from 15:00 to 16:00 (UK time)
Location: CON 1.01 (Connaught House, 1st Floor) and on Zoom
Abstract: Did improved housing conditions contribute to the 19th century mortality transition? In this paper we examine a rare example of a government-directed public health intervention in rural areas, namely the large-scale provision of social housing in Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We exploit a new dataset of deaths-by-disease, deaths-by-age and the implementation of the house building scheme across local districts over the period 1880-1919, to test the impact of the intervention on mortality. Both TWFE and novel difference-in-difference estimators show that more treated areas experienced a persistent decline in disease mortality over subsequent decades. This effect is driven by reductions in deaths from respiratory diseases. A causal interpretation is supported by falsification tests on deaths from non-communicable diseases and through an analysis using age-at-death data. Beyond indicating that large-scale capital public health interventions can be effective in a rural setting, our results add to the literature of the European mortality transition and provide important causal evidence on the link between housing conditions and health outcomes.
To join our mailing list or enquire about presenting, please contact the organisers, Hampton Gaddy (h.g.gaddy@lse.ac.uk) and Midanna de Almada (m.de-almada@lse.ac.uk)
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