IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v31y2022i6p1228-1248.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of absolute versus relative temperature on health and the role of social care

Author

Listed:
  • Giuliano Masiero
  • Fabrizio Mazzonna
  • Michael Santarossa

Abstract

We investigate the effect of extreme temperatures on mortality and emergency hospital admissions, and whether local social care allows to mitigate their adverse effects. We merge monthly administrative data on mortality and hospital discharge from Italian municipalities for the period 2001–2015 with daily data on local weather conditions, and yearly data on disaggregated municipal expenditure. We compare two different measures of temperature shocks, one using the conventional approach based on absolute levels (without accounting for regional heterogeneity) and the other based on deviations from local mean temperatures. The former approach shows noisy evidence of an increase in mortality due to extremely hot days while the latter approach shows a large increase in mortality and hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases due to both cold and hot days. These effects are mostly driven by the oldest age group and partially by young children. Then, we report evidence of a mitigating effect of social expenditure on the impact of extremely hot and cold days on both emergency hospital admission and mortality rates. A back of the envelope calculation suggests that the additional social care expenditure is fully compensated by the benefits arising from the lower impact of temperature shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuliano Masiero & Fabrizio Mazzonna & Michael Santarossa, 2022. "The effect of absolute versus relative temperature on health and the role of social care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 1228-1248, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:31:y:2022:i:6:p:1228-1248
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.4507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4507
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.4507?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barreca, Alan I., 2012. "Climate change, humidity, and mortality in the United States," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-34.
    2. Garth Heutel & Nolan H. Miller & David Molitor, 2021. "Adaptation and the Mortality Effects of Temperature across U.S. Climate Regions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(4), pages 740-753, October.
    3. Alan Barreca & Karen Clay & Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2015. "Convergence in Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from High Temperatures and Mortality, 1900-2004," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 247-251, May.
    4. Olivier Deschênes & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Extreme Weather Events, Mortality, and Migration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 659-681, November.
    5. Costa-Font, Joan & Jimenez-Martin, Sergi & Vilaplana, Cristina, 2018. "Does long-term care subsidization reduce hospital admissions and utilization?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 43-66.
    6. Lagravinese, R. & Moscone, F. & Tosetti, E. & Lee, H., 2014. "The impact of air pollution on hospital admissions: Evidence from Italy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 278-285.
    7. Viscusi, W. Kip & Masterman, Clayton J., 2017. "Income Elasticities and Global Values of a Statistical Life," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(2), pages 226-250, July.
    8. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    9. Corey White, 2017. "The Dynamic Relationship between Temperature and Morbidity," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(4), pages 1155-1198.
    10. Mullins, Jamie T. & White, Corey, 2019. "Temperature and mental health: Evidence from the spectrum of mental health outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    11. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2011. "Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the US," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 152-185, October.
    12. Alan Barreca & Karen Clay & Olivier Deschenes & Michael Greenstone & Joseph S. Shapiro, 2016. "Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the US Temperature-Mortality Relationship over the Twentieth Century," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 105-159.
    13. Marcus Dillender, 2021. "Climate Change and Occupational Health: Are There Limits to Our Ability to Adapt?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(1), pages 184-224.
    14. Karlsson, Martin & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2018. "Population health effects and health-related costs of extreme temperatures: Comprehensive evidence from Germany," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 93-117.
    15. Dahl, Espen & van der Wel, Kjetil A., 2013. "Educational inequalities in health in European welfare states: A social expenditure approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 60-69.
    16. Olsen, Karen M. & Dahl, Svenn-Åge, 2007. "Health differences between European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 1665-1678, April.
    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. Gibney, Garreth & McDermott, Thomas K.J. & Cullinan, John, 2023. "Temperature, morbidity, and behavior in milder climates," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    2. Bratti, Massimiliano & Frimpong, Prince Boakye & Russo, Simone, 2021. "Prenatal Exposure to Heat Waves and Child Health in Sub-saharan Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 14424, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Risto Conte Keivabu & Marco Cozzani & Joshua Wilde, 2023. "Temperature and fertility: evidence from Spanish register data," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-021, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    4. Filomena, Mattia & Picchio, Matteo, 2024. "Unsafe temperatures, unsafe jobs: The impact of weather conditions on work-related injuries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 851-875.
    5. Martin Hensher, 2023. "Climate change, health and sustainable healthcare: The role of health economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 985-992, May.
    6. Bui, Thanh-Huong & Bui, Ha-Phuong & Pham, Thi Mai-Anh, 2024. "Effects of temperature on job insecurity: Evidence from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 264-276.

    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. Gibney, Garreth & McDermott, Thomas K.J. & Cullinan, John, 2023. "Temperature, morbidity, and behavior in milder climates," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    2. Sam Cosaert & Adrián Nieto & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2023. "Temperature and Joint Time Use," CESifo Working Paper Series 10464, CESifo.
    3. Mullins, Jamie T. & White, Corey, 2020. "Can access to health care mitigate the effects of temperature on mortality?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    4. Agarwal, Sumit & Qin, Yu & Shi, Luwen & Wei, Guoxu & Zhu, Hongjia, 2021. "Impact of temperature on morbidity: New evidence from China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    5. Manuela K. Fritz, 2021. "Temperature and non-communicable diseases: Evidence from Indonesia's primary health care system," Working Papers 206, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    6. Fritz, Manuela, 2021. "Temperature and non-communicable diseases: Evidence from Indonesia's primary health care system," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-84-21, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    7. Manuela Fritz, 2022. "Temperature and non‐communicable diseases: Evidence from Indonesia's primary health care system," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(11), pages 2445-2464, November.
    8. Cosaert, Sam & Nieto Castro, Adrian & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2023. "Temperature and the Timing of Work," IZA Discussion Papers 16480, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Otrachshenko, Vladimir & Popova, Olga & Solomin, Pavel, 2018. "Misfortunes never come singly: Consecutive weather shocks and mortality in Russia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 249-258.
    10. Benedikt Janzen, 2022. "Temperature and Mental Health: Evidence from Helpline Calls," Papers 2207.04992, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    11. Karlsson, Martin & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2018. "Population health effects and health-related costs of extreme temperatures: Comprehensive evidence from Germany," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 93-117.
    12. García-Witulski, Christian & Rabassa, Mariano Javier & Conte Grand, Mariana & Rozenberg, Julie, 2023. "Valuing mortality attributable to present and future temperature extremes in Argentina," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    13. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2023. "Climate change and the mortality of the unborn," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    14. Katharina Drescher & Benedikt Janzen, 2023. "When Weather Wounds Workers: The Impact of Temperature on Workplace Accidents," Working Papers 226, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    15. Xi Chen & Chih Ming Tan & Xiaobo Zhang & Xin Zhang, 2020. "The effects of prenatal exposure to temperature extremes on birth outcomes: the case of China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1263-1302, October.
    16. Picchio, Matteo & van Ours, Jan C., 2024. "The impact of high temperatures on performance in work-related activities," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Li, Xue & Smyth, Russell & Xin, Guangyi & Yao, Yao, 2023. "Warmer temperatures and energy poverty: Evidence from Chinese households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    18. Cuong Viet Nguyen & Manh‐Hung Nguyen & Toan Truong Nguyen, 2023. "The impact of cold waves and heat waves on mortality: Evidence from a lower middle‐income country," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(6), pages 1220-1243, June.
    19. Li, Xue & Smyth, Russell & Yao, Yao, 2023. "Extreme temperatures and out-of-pocket medical expenditure: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    20. Michael Geruso & Dean Spears, 2018. "Heat, Humidity, and Infant Mortality in the Developing World," NBER Working Papers 24870, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:wly:hlthec:v:31:y:2022:i:6:p:1228-1248. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.