Slacking
Decreasing human body temperature in the United States since the industrial revolution
Myroslava Protsiv et al.
eLife, January 2020
Abstract:
In the US, the normal, oral temperature of adults is, on average, lower than the canonical 37°C established in the 19th century. We postulated that body temperature has decreased over time. Using measurements from three cohorts -- the Union Army Veterans of the Civil War (N = 23,710; measurement years 1860–1940), the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I (N = 15,301; 1971–1975), and the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment (N = 150,280; 2007–2017) -- we determined that mean body temperature in men and women, after adjusting for age, height, weight and, in some models date and time of day, has decreased monotonically by 0.03°C per birth decade. A similar decline within the Union Army cohort as between cohorts, makes measurement error an unlikely explanation. This substantive and continuing shift in body temperature -- a marker for metabolic rate -- provides a framework for understanding changes in human health and longevity over 157 years.
Is Happiness U-shaped Everywhere? Age and Subjective Well-being in 132 Countries
David Blanchflower
NBER Working Paper, January 2020
Abstract:
I draw systematic comparisons across 109 data files and 132 countries of the relationship between well-being, variously defined, and age. I produce 444 significant country estimates with controls, so these are ceteris paribus effects, and find evidence of a well-being U-shape in age in one hundred and thirty-two countries, including ninety-five developing countries, controlling for education, marital and labor force status. I also frequently find it without any controls at all. There is additional evidence from an array of attitudinal questions that were worded slightly differently than standard happiness or life satisfaction questions such as satisfaction with an individual's financial situation. Averaging across the 257 individual country estimates from developing countries gives an age minimum of 48.2 for well-being and doing the same across the 187 country estimates for advanced countries gives a similar minimum of 47.2. The happiness curve is everywhere.
The 2016 California policy to eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions and changes in vaccine coverage: An empirical policy analysis
Sindiso Nyathi et al.
PLoS ONE, December 2019
Methods and findings: We used a quasi-experimental state-level synthetic control analysis and a county-level difference-in-differences analysis to estimate the impact of the 2016 California policy on vaccination coverage and prevalence of exemptions to vaccine requirements (nonmedical and medical). We used publicly available state-level data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on coverage of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination, nonmedical exemption, and medical exemption in children entering kindergarten. We used county-level data individually requested from state departments of public health on overall vaccine coverage and exemptions. Based on data availability, we included state-level data for 45 states, including California, from 2011 to 2017 and county-level data for 17 states from 2010 to 2017. The prespecified primary study outcome was MMR vaccination in the state analysis and overall vaccine coverage in the county analysis. In the state-level synthetic control analysis, MMR coverage in California increased by 3.3% relative to its synthetic control in the postpolicy period (top 2 of 43 states evaluated in the placebo tests, top 5%), nonmedical exemptions decreased by 2.4% (top 2 of 43 states evaluated in the placebo tests, top 5%), and medical exemptions increased by 0.4% (top 1 of 44 states evaluated in the placebo tests, top 2%). In the county-level analysis, overall vaccination coverage increased by 4.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.9%–5.8%, p < 0.001), nonmedical exemptions decreased by 3.9% (95% CI 2.4%–5.4%, p < 0.001), and medical exemptions increased by 2.4% (95% CI 2.0%–2.9%, p < 0.001). Changes in vaccination coverage across counties after the policy implementation from 2015 to 2017 ranged from −6% to 26%, with larger increases in coverage in counties with lower prepolicy vaccine coverage. Results were robust to alternative model specifications. The limitations of the study were the exclusion of a subset of US states from the analysis and the use of only 2 years of postpolicy data based on data availability.
Conclusions: In this study, implementation of the California policy that eliminated nonmedical childhood vaccine exemptions was associated with an estimated increase in vaccination coverage and a reduction in nonmedical exemptions at state and county levels. The observed increase in medical exemptions was offset by the larger reduction in nonmedical exemptions. The largest increases in vaccine coverage were observed in the most “high-risk” counties, meaning those with the lowest prepolicy vaccine coverage. Our findings suggest that government policies removing nonmedical exemptions can be effective at increasing vaccination coverage.
Sleep, health, and human capital: Evidence from daylight saving time
Lawrence Jin & Nicolas Ziebarth
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Chronic sleep deprivation is a significant and understudied public health issue. Using BRFSS survey data from the United States and an administrative census of 160 million hospital admissions from Germany, we study the causal relationship between sleep and health. Our empirical approach exploits the end of Daylight Saving Time in a quasi-experimental setting on a daily basis. First, we show that setting clocks back by one hour in the middle of the night significantly extends people's sleep duration. In addition, we find significant health benefits via sharp reductions in hospital admissions. For example, hospitalizations due to cardiovascular diseases decrease by ten per day, per one million population. Using an event study approach, we find that the effect persists for four days after the time shift. Admissions due to heart attacks and injuries also exhibit the same characteristic four-day decrease. We also provide a series of checks to rule out alternative, non-sleep related, mechanisms. Finally, we discuss the benefits of additional sleep for the sleep-deprived as well as policy implications for nudging people to sleep more. Our findings illustrate the importance of public policies that target sleep deprivation.
The effects of aerobic training on subclinical negative affect: A randomized controlled trial
Kathleen McIntyre et al.
Health Psychology, forthcoming
Method: One-hundred and 19 men (n = 56) and women (n = 63) aged 20–45 were randomized to 1 of 2 conditions: (a) 12 weeks of aerobic exercise after which they were asked to halt exercising and decondition for 4 weeks, or (b) a 16-week waitlist control group. Assessments of depression, anxiety, hostility and anger were completed at study entry, Week 12 and Week 16.
Results: At study entry, participants scored low on measures of depression, anxiety, hostility and anger. Analyses among the intent-to-treat and per protocol samples found significant treatment effects of aerobic training for hostility and depression, but not for anxiety and anger. Within-group analyses demonstrated that depression and hostility scores decreased in the exercise group over the course of the intervention, while remaining stable in the control group. These effects persisted for the exercise group at nonsignificant levels after 4 weeks of deconditioning.