Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/245597 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 14546
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper provides new evidence that preventive health care services delivered at schools and provided at a relatively low cost have positive and lasting impacts. We use variation from a 1999-reform in Norway that induced substantial differences in the availability of health professionals across municipalities and cohorts. In municipalities with one fewer school nurse per 1,000 school-age children before the reform there was an increase in the availability of nurses of 35% from the pre- to the post-reform period, attributed to the policy change. The reform reduced teenage pregnancies and increased college attendance for girls. It also reduced the take-up of welfare benefits by ages 26 and 30 and increased the planned use of primary and specialist health care services at ages 25-35, without impacts on emergency room admissions. The reform also improved the health of newborns of affected new mothers and reduced the likelihood of miscarriages.
Subjects: 
school health services
teenage pregnancy
welfare dependency
utilization of health services
health status
JEL: 
H75
I10
I12
I28
I30
I38
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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