IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v327y2023ics0277953623002976.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Opioids ease my pain: Early-life malnutrition and elderly outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Mokhtari, MohammadAli

Abstract

Despite a large body of evidence showing that early-life malnutrition influences adult outcomes, there is no evidence that early-life starvation causes use of opioids. Studying the long-term effects of a food shortage in Iran caused by WWII, we find that the rate of people who use drugs in this cohort increased significantly higher than in surrounding cohorts. Then, we examine a broad spectrum of outcomes for this cohort to shed light on potential causes of opioid use in the survivors of this cohort. Our findings suggest that pain contributes significantly to opioid use.

Suggested Citation

  • Mokhtari, MohammadAli, 2023. "Opioids ease my pain: Early-life malnutrition and elderly outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:327:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623002976
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115940
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953623002976
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115940?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie & Valentina Duque, 2018. "Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1360-1446, December.
    2. Manisha Shah & Bryce Millett Steinberg, 2017. "Drought of Opportunities: Contemporaneous and Long-Term Impacts of Rainfall Shocks on Human Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(2), pages 527-561.
    3. Yang, Tse-Chuan & Shoff, Carla & Kim, Seulki, 2022. "Social isolation, residential stability, and opioid use disorder among older Medicare beneficiaries: Metropolitan and non-metropolitan county comparison," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    4. Taryn Dinkelman, 2017. "Long‐run Health Repercussions of Drought Shocks: Evidence from South African Homelands," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(604), pages 1906-1939, September.
    5. Kyriopoulos, Ilias & Nikoloski, Zlatko & Mossialos, Elias, 2019. "Does economic recession impact newborn health? Evidence from Greece," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Xu, Hongwei & Li, Lydia & Zhang, Zhenmei & Liu, Jinyu, 2016. "Is natural experiment a cure? Re-examining the long-term health effects of China's 1959–1961 famine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 110-122.
    7. Prasad, Amit & Kano, Megumi & Dagg, Kendra Ann-Masako & Mori, Hanako & Senkoro, Hawa Hamisi & Ardakani, Mohammad Assai & Elfeky, Samar & Good, Suvajee & Engelhardt, Katrin & Ross, Alex & Armada, Franc, 2015. "Prioritizing action on health inequities in cities: An evaluation of Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART) in 15 cities from Asia and Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 237-242.
    8. Achyuta Adhvaryu & James Fenske & Anant Nyshadham, 2019. "Early Life Circumstance and Adult Mental Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1516-1549.
    9. Taryn Dinkelman, 2017. "Long‐Run Health Repercussions of Drought Shocks: Evidence from South African Homelands," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(604), pages 1906-1939.
    10. Almond, Douglas & Currie, Janet, 2011. "Human Capital Development before Age Five," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 15, pages 1315-1486, Elsevier.
    11. Dadgar, Yadollah & Noferesti, Mohammad & Mokhtari, Mohammadali, 2020. "An Assessment of the Level, Trend, and Distribution of Multidimensional Poverty in Iran (in Persian)," The Journal of Planning and Budgeting (٠صلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه), Institute for Management and Planning studies, vol. 25(2), pages 25-43, August.
    12. Song, Shige & Wang, Wei & Hu, Peifeng, 2009. "Famine, death, and madness: Schizophrenia in early adulthood after prenatal exposure to the Chinese Great Leap Forward Famine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1315-1321, April.
    13. Hansen, Bradley, 2001. "Learning To Tax: The Political Economy Of The Opium Trade In Iran, 1921–1941," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(1), pages 95-113, March.
    14. Dadgar, Yadollah & Noferesti, Mohammad & Vesal, Mohammad & Mokhtari, Mohammadali, 2020. "The Lasting Effect of Iran Occupation in WWII on the Height of People in Tehran (in Persian)," The Journal of Planning and Budgeting (٠صلنامه برنامه ریزی و بودجه), Institute for Management and Planning studies, vol. 25(3), pages 117-143, November.
    15. Preston, Samuel H. & Hill, Mark E. & Drevenstedt, Greg L., 1998. "Childhood conditions that predict survival to advanced ages among African-Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1231-1246, November.
    16. Lee, Chulhee, 2014. "Intergenerational health consequences of in utero exposure to maternal stress: Evidence from the 1980 Kwangju uprising," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 284-291.
    17. Hilary Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Douglas Almond, 2016. "Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 903-934, April.
    18. Huang, Cheng & Phillips, Michael R. & Zhang, Yali & Zhang, Jingxuan & Shi, Qichang & Song, Zhiqiang & Ding, Zhijie & Pang, Shutao & Martorell, Reynaldo, 2013. "Malnutrition in early life and adult mental health: Evidence from a natural experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 259-266.
    19. Thompson-Lastad, Ariana & Rubin, Sara, 2020. "A crack in the wall: Chronic pain management in integrative group medical visits," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    20. Fritze, Thomas & Doblhammer, Gabriele & van den Berg, Gerard J., 2014. "Can individual conditions during childhood mediate or moderate the long-term cognitive effects of poor economic environments at birth?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 240-248.
    21. Prashant Bharadwaj & Katrine Vellesen L?ken & Christopher Neilson, 2013. "Early Life Health Interventions and Academic Achievement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1862-1891, August.
    22. Anne Case & Angua Deaton, 2015. "Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century," Working Papers 15078.full.pdf, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    23. Friebel, Rocco & Yoo, Katelyn Jison & Maynou, Laia, 2022. "Opioid abuse and austerity: Evidence on health service use and mortality in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    24. Ding, Ruoxi & He, Ping, 2021. "Associations between childhood adversities and late-life cognitive function: Potential mechanisms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 291(C).
    25. Catalano, Ralph A. & Bruckner, Tim, 2005. "Economic antecedents of the Swedish sex ratio," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 537-543, February.
    26. Griffith, Gareth J. & Jones, Kelvyn, 2019. "Understanding the population structure of the GHQ-12: Methodological considerations in dimensionally complex measurement outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mingwang Cheng & Zhouxiang Wang & Ning Neil Yu, 2024. "Long‐term mental health cost of the Great Chinese Famine," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 121-136, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Yanan & Sunder, Naveen, 2021. "What doesn’t kill her, will make her depressed," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    2. Deng, Zichen & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2022. "A bit of salt, a trace of life: Gender norms and the impact of a salt iodization program on human capital formation of school aged children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Shoji, Masahiro, 2020. "Early-Life Circumstances and Adult Locus of Control: Evidence from 46 Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 99987, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Araújo, Daniel & Carrillo, Bladimir & Sampaio, Breno, 2021. "The Long-Run Economic Consequences of Iodine Supplementation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    5. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie & Valentina Duque, 2018. "Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1360-1446, December.
    6. Hyland, Marie & Russ, Jason, 2019. "Water as destiny – The long-term impacts of drought in sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 30-45.
    7. Zheng, Xiaodong & Fang, Zuyi & Wang, Yajun & Fang, Xiangming, 2022. "When left-behind children become adults and parents: The long-term human capital consequences of parental absence in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    8. Duque, Valentina & Rosales-Rueda, Maria & Sanchez, Fabio, 2019. "How Do Early-Life Shocks Interact with Subsequent Human Capital Investments? Evidence from Administrative Data," Working Papers 2019-17, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    9. Chen, Xi, 2022. "Early Life Circumstances and the Health of Older Adults: A Research Note," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1158, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    10. Ishak, Phoebe W. & Gradstein, Mark, 2021. "We Don't Need No Education: The Effect of Persistent Income Shocks on Human Capital," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242368, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Lee, Wang-Sheng & Li, Ben G., 2021. "Extreme weather and mortality: Evidence from two millennia of Chinese elites," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    12. Gabriella Conti, 2013. "The Developmental Origins of Health Inequality," Research on Economic Inequality, in: Health and Inequality, volume 21, pages 285-309, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. James Fenske & Igor Zurimendi, 2017. "Oil and ethnic inequality in Nigeria," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 397-420, December.
    14. Mochamad Pasha & Marc Rockmore & Chih Ming Tan & Dhanushka Thamarapani, 2023. "Early Life Exposure to Above Average Rainfall and Adult Mental Health," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(4), pages 692-717, August.
    15. Chyn, Eric & Gold, Samantha & Hastings, Justine, 2021. "The returns to early-life interventions for very low birth weight children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    16. Fang, Guanfu & Zhu, Ying, 2022. "Long-term impacts of school nutrition: Evidence from China’s school meal reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    17. Jia Wu & Jiada Lin & Xiao Han, 2023. "Compensation for girls in early childhood and its long-run impact: family investment strategies under rainfall shocks," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1225-1268, July.
    18. Gradstein, Mark & Ishak, Phoebe W., 2020. "We Don't Need No Education: The Effect of Natural Resource Income Shocks on Human Capital," IZA Discussion Papers 14004, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Britta Rude, 2024. "Middle-run educational impacts of comprehensive early childhood interventions: evidence from a pioneer program in Chile," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-30, June.
    20. Bladimir Carrillo, 2020. "Early Rainfall Shocks and Later-Life Outcomes: Evidence from Colombia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(1), pages 179-209.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health and early life; Opioid use roots; Deaths of despair; WWII and Iran;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:327:y:2023:i:c:s0277953623002976. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.