Health and Economic Development

Dissertation Project - Three topics on the Mississippi Delta
Harvard School of Public Health
Posted: 05-06-2009

Description
This dissertation project will cover three discrete research projects about the Mississippi Delta Region:
(1)The relationship between income and life expectancy in the Mississippi Delta Region and the United States
(2)Econometric analysis examining the relationship between health and economic growth in the United States and the Mississippi Delta Region
(3)Specific Causes of mortality in the Mississippi Delta compared to the United States and the relationship to income

Objectives
Determine the relationship between and factor influencing income and health in the Mississippi Delta Region

Dates
Beginning: 2006
Ending: 2010

Status
Ongoing

Summary
Paper 1: This paper demonstrates that income is not destiny. Non-income factors, such as diffusion of scientific knowledge and technology, access to medical advances, health insurance coverage, and lower heath risks may be more important for improvements in life expectancy over time than income alone (for almost all groups examined in this paper). The Delta Region is falling behind the rest of the United States in levels of life expectancy. This is seen when comparing overall life expectancy in the Delta region to overall life expectancy in the rest of the US; when comparing male life expectancy in the Delta region to male life expectancy in the rest of the US; female life expectancy in the Delta Region in comparison to female life expectancy in the rest of the US and life expectancy for blacks in the Delta region compared to life expectancy for blacks in the rest of the US. Improvements in female life expectancy in the Delta region are beginning to slow, although absolute numbers still show female life expectancy to be higher than male life expectancy as of the year 2000. Regressions show that while income and education are important in most of the US for improvements in life expectancy over the period 1970 to 2000, income and education do not seem to have as large of an impact on improvements in life expectancy in the Delta Region.

Paper 2: This paper examines whether economic growth at the county level in the United States is due to improvements in life expectancy over the period 1970 to 2000. State tobacco tax is used as an instrument for life expectancy. Other possible confounding factors, such as education, age structure, and race, are controlled for in the analysis. At the county level, the results show that there is either a null or negative relationship between improvements in life expectancy and economic growth.

Paper 3: This study examines the relationship between income and the five leading causes of death (cardiovascular, stoke, cancer, diabetes, and injuries) in the United States and in the Mississippi Delta. The preliminary results show that the Mississippi Delta has fallen behind the most in terms of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. Further results will follow.

Research Partners
Mississippi State University

Funding Partners
Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University

Sources
Preston, Samuel H.. The Changing Relation between Mortality and Level of Economic Development. Population Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jul., 1975), pp. 231-248

Bloom, David E. and Diana M. Bowser. The Population Health and Income Nexus in the
Mississippi River Delta Region and Beyond. Journal of Health and Human Services
Administration. Summer 2008.

Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson, “Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth,” Journal of Political Economy, December 2007, 115 (6), 925—985.

Murray CJL, Kulkarni SC, Michaud C, Tomijima N, Bulzacchelli MT, et al. (2006) Eight Americas: Investigating mortality disparities across races, counties, and race-counties in the United State. PLoS Med 3(9): e260. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030260.