Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265922 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 9887
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Although a significant number of middle and low-income countries have expanded access to subsidized health insurance, it still is unclear whether these insurance expansions improve children's health. This paper exploits quasi-random variation from an insurance expansion targeted at poor households in Peru to investigate its effects on nutrition related children's health. We find that access to insurance reduces childhood obesity and exerts positive and economically significant effects on some preventive health care utilization and behaviours. That is, we show that insurance eligibility improves children's regular growth check-ups and deworming treatments, consistent with an increased awareness of children's weight and height and improvements on preventive health behaviours: namely, an increase in the duration of breastfeeding, and a substitution of the provision of food rich in carbohydrates for food rich in proteins. In contrast, we do not find any significant effect on other outcomes that are found to be sensitive to other interventions.
Subjects: 
children's health
obesity
overweight
public health insurance
health behaviors
nutrition
breast-feeding
JEL: 
I18
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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