1918 Every Year: Racial Inequality in Infectious Mortality, 1906−1942
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 112,
May 2022
(pp. 199-204)
Abstract
In the first half of the twentieth century, racial inequality in the rate of death from infectious disease was immense. In every year from 1906 to 1920, Black Americans in cities died from infectious diseases at a rate higher than that of urban White Americans during the 1918 influenza pandemic. We decompose mortality into three broad causes of death to determine which causes were most influential. Our results suggest that racial inequality in infectious mortality was primarily driven by TB and flu—the two major respiratory causes of death. Waterborne causes, by contrast, played a minor role in explaining the disparity.Citation
Feigenbaum, James J., Lauren Hoehn-Velasco, Christopher Muller, and Elizabeth Wrigley-Field. 2022. "1918 Every Year: Racial Inequality in Infectious Mortality, 1906−1942." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 112: 199-204. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20221068Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- N31 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
- N32 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: 1913-