Family Health Behaviors
American Economic Review
vol. 109,
no. 9, September 2019
(pp. 3162-91)
Abstract
We study how health behaviors are shaped through family spillovers. We leverage administrative data to identify the effects of health shocks on family members' consumption of preventive care and health-related behaviors, constructing counterfactuals for affected households using households that experience the same shock but a few years in the future. Spouses and adult children immediately improve their health behaviors and their responses are both significant and persistent. These spillovers are far-reaching as they cascade even to coworkers. While some responses are consistent with learning information about one's own health, the evidence points to salience as a major operative explanation.Citation
Fadlon, Itzik, and Torben Heien Nielsen. 2019. "Family Health Behaviors." American Economic Review, 109 (9): 3162-91. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20171993Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D15 Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- I12 Health Behavior
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse