Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215113 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12717
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Differential access to health care is commonly cited as a source of heterogeneity in the health effects of environmental exposure, yet little causal evidence exists to support such claims. We test this hypothesis by utilizing exogenous variation in both access to health care and environmental exposure. Variation in access to care is derived from the roll-out of Community Health Centers (CHCs) across US counties in the 1960s and 1970s, and variation in environmental exposure comes from random year-to-year fluctuations in ambi-ent temperature within counties. We find that the provision of primary care through CHCs mitigates the relationship between heat and mortality by approximately 15%. Our results suggest that differential access to health care does contribute to observed heterogeneity in environmental health damages, and that improving access to primary care may be a useful means of mitigating harm from a warming climate.
Subjects: 
health care
access
climate
temperature
environment
JEL: 
I10
I14
I18
Q50
Q52
Q54
Q58
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
499.91 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.