Modern Medicine and the 20th Century Decline in Mortality: Evidence on the Impact of Sulfa Drugs / Seema Jayachandran, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Kimberly V. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jayachandran, Seema.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lleras-Muney, Adriana.

Smith, Kimberly V.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15089.

NBER working paper series no. w15089

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Modern Medicine and the 20th Century Decline in Mortality

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

This paper studies the contribution of sulfa drugs, a groundbreaking medical innovation in the 1930s, to declines in U.S. mortality. For several often-fatal infectious diseases, sulfa drugs represented the first effective treatment. Using time-series and difference-in-differences methods (with diseases unaffected by sulfa drugs as a comparison group), we find that sulfa drugs led to a 25 to 40 percent decline in maternal mortality, 17 to 36 percent decline in pneumonia mortality, and 52 to 67 percent decline in scarlet-fever mortality between 1937 and 1943. Altogether, they reduced mortality by 2 to 4 percent and increased life expectancy by 0.4 to 0.8 years. We also find that sulfa drugs benefited whites more than blacks.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2009.