Health, Stress, and Social Networks: Evidence from Union Army Veterans / Dora L. Costa, Matthew E. Kahn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Costa, Dora L.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kahn, Matthew E.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14053.

NBER working paper series no. w14053

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Health, Stress, and Social Networks

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2008.

Summary:

We find that veterans of the Union Army who faced greater wartime stress (as measured by higher battlefield mortality rates) experienced higher mortality rates at older ages, but that men who were from more cohesive companies were statistically significantly less likely to be affected by wartime stress. Our results hold for overall mortality, mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke, and new diagnoses of arteriosclerosis. Our findings represent one of the first long-run health follow-ups of the interaction between stress and social networks in a human population in which both stress and social networks are arguably exogeneous.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2008.