Essays On Health Economics

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.