Working Paper: NBER ID: w21635
Authors: Karen Clay; Joshua Lewis; Edson Severnini
Abstract: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic killed millions worldwide and hundreds of thousands in the United States. This paper studies the impact of air pollution on pandemic mortality. The analysis combines a panel dataset on infant and all-age mortality with a novel measure of air pollution based on the burning of coal in a large sample of U.S. cities. We estimate that air pollution contributed significantly to pandemic mortality. Cities that used more coal experienced tens of thousands of excess deaths in 1918 relative to cities that used less coal with similar pre-pandemic socioeconomic conditions and baseline health. Factors related to poverty, public health, and the timing of onset also affected pandemic mortality. The findings support recent medical evidence on the link between air pollution and influenza infection, and suggest that poor air quality was an important cause of mortality during the pandemic.
Keywords: air pollution; mortality; 1918 influenza pandemic; public health; coal-fired capacity
JEL Codes: I15; I18; N32; N52; Q40; Q53
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Air Pollution (Q53) | Mortality (I12) |
| Coal-fired Electricity Generation (L94) | Air Pollution (Q53) |
| Coal-fired Electricity Generation (L94) | Mortality (I12) |
| Air Pollution (Q53) | Infant Mortality (J13) |
| Air Pollution (Q53) | All-age Mortality (J11) |
| Mortality (I12) | Additional Deaths (I12) |