Air pollution was severe in the nineteenth century, yet its health consequences are often overlooked due to a lack of pollution data. We offer a new approach for inferring local coal use levels based on local industrial structure and industry-specific coal use intensity. This allows us to provide the first estimates of the mortality effects of British industrial coal use in 1851-60. Exploiting wind patterns for identification, we find that a one standard deviation increase in coal use raised infant mortality by 6-8% and that industrial coal use explains roughly one-third of the urban mortality penalty observed during this period.

New water purification technologies led to large mortality declines by helping eliminate typhoid fever and other waterborne diseases. We examine how this affected human capital formation using early-life typhoid fatality rates to proxy for water quality. We merge city-level data to individuals linked between the 1900 and 1940 Censuses. Eliminating early-life exposure to typhoid fever increased later-life earnings by one percent and educational attainment by one month. Instrumenting for typhoid fever using typhoid rates from cities that lie upstream produces results nine times larger. The increase in earnings from eliminating typhoid fever more than offset the cost of elimination.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans+ a (LGBT+) people report poorer health than the general population and worse experiences of healthcare particularly cancer, palliative/end-of-life, dementia and mental health provision. This is attributable to: a) social inequalities, including 'minority stress'; b) associated health-risk behaviours (e.g. smoking, excessive drug/alcohol use, obesity); c) loneliness and isolation, affecting physical/mental health and mortality; d) anticipated/experienced discrimination and e) inadequate understandings of needs among healthcare providers. Older LGBT+ people are particularly affected, due to the effects of both cumulative disadvantage and ageing. There is a need for greater and more robust research data to support growing international and national government initiatives aimed at addressing these health inequalities. We identify seven key research strategies: 1) Production of large datasets; 2) Comparative data collection; 3) Addressing diversity and intersectionality among LGBT+ older people; 4) Investigation of healthcare services' capacity to deliver LGBT+ affirmative healthcare and associated education and training needs; 5) Identification of effective health promotion and/or treatment interventions for older LGBT+ people, and sub-groups within this umbrella category; 6) Development an (older) LGBT+ health equity model; 7) Utilisation of social justice concepts to ensure meaningful, change-orientated data production which will inform and support government policy, health promotion and healthcare interventions.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.