The effect of health shocks on smoking and obesity

Abstract

The results of the study suggest that smokers are aware of the risks associated with tobacco consumption, know about effective strategies to quit smoking, and are willing to quit for health-related reasons. In contrast, there was no evidence for changes in health-related behaviour among obese individuals after a health shock.

Health shocks and risk aversion

“…The same might be true for the optimal reimbursement by a health insurance or the individual decision to save for retirement across the life cycle. Furthermore, there exists empirical evidence that health shocks affect the probability that individuals smoke (Smith et al, 2001;Sundmacher, 2012;Bünnings, 2013). One possible mechanism for such a behavioural change could be a shift in individual risk aversion as a result of a health shock.…”

“…A large share of these are typically confined to self-reported information of some kind. A prominent approach is to work with changes in the self-assessed health status of individuals (Clark and Etilé, 2002;García-Gómez, 2011;Sundmacher, 2012). Several other studies also refer to the onset of severe health conditions such as cancer (Smith et al, 2001;Clark and Etilé, 2002;Sahm, 2012).…”

A Dynamic Model of Health, Education, and Wealth with Credit Constraints and Rational Addiction

“…Research also shows that the rational addiction model can be applied to empirically investigate individuals' demand for caffeine consumption (Olekalns and Bardsley (1996)) and cocaine consumption ). Sundmacher (2012) finds that health shocks had a significant positive impact on the probability that smokers quit during the same year in which they experienced the health shock, providing evidence that smokers are aware of the risks associated with tobacco consumption, and are willing to quit for health-related reasons. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that structurally estimates a model with rational addition and endogenous human capital investment in both education and health.…”

Heterogeneity in the smoking response to health shocks by out-of-pocket spending risk

“…'health shocks') can induce healthy changes in smoking and weight status among older adults (Clark and Etilé, 2002;Falba, 2005;Khwaja et al, 2006aKhwaja et al, , 2006bKeenan, 2009;Sundmacher, 2012). Several studies demonstrate that new medical conditions (i.e.…”