Re-Constructing Childhood Health Histories

34 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2009

See all articles by James P. Smith

James P. Smith

RAND Corporation; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Abstract

This paper provides evidence about the quality of retrospective childhood health histories given to respondents in the HRS and the PSID. Even though information on early life health events is critical, there is legitimate skepticism about the ability of older respondents to remember specific health problems that they had as a child. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that this is too negative a view. Respondents appear to remember salient childhood events about themselves such as the illnesses they had as a child quite well. Moreover, these physical and psychological childhood health events are important correlates of adult health during middle age.

Keywords: recall, childhood health

JEL Classification: H0, J0

Suggested Citation

Smith, James P., Re-Constructing Childhood Health Histories. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4036, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1351199 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1351199

James P. Smith (Contact Author)

RAND Corporation ( email )

P.O. Box 2138
1776 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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