This dissertation consists of three essays in Health Economics relating to the recent challenges in the U.S. The first essay studies the impact of retirement on subsequent health and investigates the mediation effect of social network in the relationship between retirement and health. Findings reveal that retirement adversely impacts physical and mental health outcomes and a considerable portion of these effects are explained by social network changes post-retirement. In particular, shrinkage in the size of social network post-retirement deteriorates physical health and increases depression in retirees.
In the second essay, we assess the differential effect of social distancing on the daily growth rate of COVID-19 infections in the US counties by considering the spatial pattern of COVID-19 spread. We also conduct a comparative analysis of the effect on urban versus rural counties, as well as low versus high socially vulnerable counties. Our analysis illustrates that a high level of social distancing compliance is needed in urban counties and in socially vulnerable areas to achieve the largest impact at curve flattening, whereas moderate-compliance is enough in reaching the peak marginal impact in rural regions and counties with low social vulnerability.
In the third essay, by combining multiple data sources, we investigate how racial disparities in access to healthcare contribute to the disparity in COVID-19 infections and mortality in black versus white sub-groups. The multilevel analysis demonstrates that a higher probability of having health insurance significantly reduces disparity in COVID-19 mortality in black sub-group while it has no impact on the disparity in whites. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation uses various quantitative methods to investigate policy-relevant questions regarding the recent challenges in the U.S. economy. In the first chapter, we explore how the physical and mental health of individuals changes by retirement. The results show that retirement decreases physical health while increases depression and anxiety. We also analyze how social network changes after retirement might cause changes in the health of retirees. We find that retirees may experience worse physical and mental health than non-retirees due to losing some of their relationships after retirement. In particular, the loss of contacts increases depression and deteriorates general health.
In the second chapter, we investigate how compliance with social distancing within a typical county and its neighbor counties can reduce the spread of COVID-19. We examine this question for urban versus rural counties in the US and socially vulnerable versus socially not vulnerable counties. We find a high compliance level of social distancing is needed in urban counties and in socially vulnerable areas to reach the highest impact at slowing down the COVID-19 virus spread.
In the third chapter, we examine whether healthcare access inequalities (e.g., having health insurance) increase the risk of COVID-19 infections and mortality for black communities. Our results show that having health insurance decreases COVID-19 mortality in communities of color but not whites.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/111465 |
| Date | 10 February 2021 |
| Creators | Pilehvari, Asal |
| Contributors | Economics, Lin, Xu, You, Wen, Chen, Susan Elizabeth, Miller, Melinda, Sarangi, Sudipta |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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