A Note on Long-Run Persistence of Public Health Outcomes in Pandemics

Abstract

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Multidimensional effect of covid-19 on the economy: evidence from survey data

“…Many studies have documented the adverse effects of Covid-19 on mortality and physical health (Goldstein & Lee, 2020;Lin & Meissner, 2020). However, there is an increasing number of studies documenting the worsening status of well-being and mental health around the world, e.g.…”

Death, Demography and the Denominator: Age-Adjusted Influenza-18 Mortality in Ireland

“…Although we have long known that demography matters, the literature on Influenza-18 tends to rely on fragile population estimates, raw death counts and crude mortality rates. Most of this year's new crop of pandemic economics studies make no acknowledgement of, let alone adjust for, the demographic composition of the countries and regions under study, either for 1918 or today (e.g., Lin and Meissner 2020). Even those studies which do take note of the differential demographic impact fail to consider its economic consequences.…”

“…As the world’s last truly global pandemic before Covid-19, the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 (“Influenza-18”) is now being used in much the same way. A plethora of new studies has already emerged which use this historical pandemic to discuss the potential short- and medium-term social, economic and political ramifications of Covid-19 (see, e.g., Barro et al 2020; Basco et al 2020; Benmelech and Boberg-Fazlic et al 2020; Frydman 2020; Carillo and Jappelli 2020; Chapelle 2020; Correia et al 2020; Dahl et al 2020; Lilley et al 2020; Lin and Meissner 2020; Velde 2020).…”

Death, demography and the denominator: Age-adjusted Influenza-18 mortality in Ireland

“…As the world's last truly global pandemic before Covid-19, the influenza pandemic of 1918 is now being used in much the same way. A plethora of new studies has already emerged which use this historical pandemic to discuss the potential social, economic and political impacts of (see, e.g., Barro et al 2020;Carillo and Jappelli 2020;Correia et al 2020;Dahl et al 2020;Lilley et al 2020;Lin and Meissner 2020;Velde 2020).…”

“…118-119). 3 Some of this year's new crop of pandemic economics studies make no acknowledgement of, let alone an adjustment for, the demographic composition of countries and regions, either for 1918 or today (e.g., Lin and Meissner 2020). But if one location has a higher mortality rate than 1 Given what we know about disease contagion in societies which fail to shut down their economies to preserve life (Hatchett 2007), we can also speculate the working-age population was inherently more at risk of catching the disease.…”