When pollution goes way down, health goes way up | Natl Bureau of Economic Research

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Business Insider summarizes: The latest evidence comes from "Lives vs. Livelihoods," a new paper by four researchers led by the renowned health economist Amy Finkelstein. They found that during the Great Recession, from 2007 to 2009, age-adjusted mortality rates among Americans dropped 0.5% for every jump of 1 percentage point in an area's unemployment rate. The more joblessness, the longer people lived — especially adults over 64 and those without a college education.

"These mortality reductions appear immediately," the economists concluded, "and they persist for at least 10 years." The effects were so large that the recession effectively provided 4% of all 55-year-olds with an extra year of life. And in states that saw big jumps in unemployment, people were more likely to report being in excellent health. Recessions, it would seem, help us stay fitter, and live longer.

The question, of course, is why. The economists ruled out a lot of possible explanations. Laid-off workers weren't using their free time to exercise more, or cutting back on smoking or drinking because money was tight. Infectious diseases like influenza and pneumonia kept right on spreading, even though fewer people were going to work and dining out. Retirees didn't seem to be getting better care, even though rising unemployment rates made it easier for nursing homes to staff up. So what could the explanation be? How does higher unemployment lead to longer life?

The answer was pollution. Counties that experienced the biggest job losses in the Great Recession, the economists found, also saw the largest declines in air pollution, as measured by levels of the fine particulate matter PM2.5. It makes sense: During recessions, fewer people drive to work. Factories and offices slow down, and people cut back on their own energy use to save money. All that reduced activity leads to cleaner air. That would explain why workers without a college degree enjoyed the biggest drops in mortality: People with low-wage jobs tend to live in neighborhoods with more environmental toxins. It would also explain why the recession reduced mortality from heart disease, suicide, and car crashes — causes of death all linked to the physical and mental effects of PM2.5.

Link: 

When pollution goes way down, health goes way up | Natl Bureau of Economic Research

MoBikeFed comment: The big story here is not so much "Recessions make people healthy" - as some news outlets have it - but rather than "Air pollution makes people sick and cleaning the air has a surprisingly large impact on our health."

Air pollution is an often overlooked but major contributor to health and longevity. One of the main benefits of promoting more bicycling and walking is, in bikeable and walkable city, people can replace car trips with biking, walking, and transit trips.

The biking and walking trips often cover short distances. But it turns out that those short trips are proportionately the most polluting - because it takes a mile or two for cars and their anti-pollution devices to warm up to peak performance.

The paper itself is published by the National Bureau of Economic Research - you can read the summary and a full PDF of the research paper here:

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32110

Business Insider summarizes the research here:

https://www.businessinsider.com/recessions-mortality-degrowth-economy-gd...