Earthquakes and mental health

[en] Earthquakes may seriously deteriorate mental health by generating fear and stress as a result of economic and human losses. However, mental health has also been found to improve as a result of greater social cohesion in affected communities after such events. We examine the short-run effects of earthquakes on a wide set of mental health outcomes in Ecuador. To this end, we combine hospital admissions, death records, and survey data with precise measures of local seismic activity to exploit the plausibly random spatial and temporal nature of earthquake intensity. We find that damaging earthquakes decrease the propensity to be admitted, the number of days of hospitalisation for mental and behavioural disorders, and deaths to suicides. Estimates from nationally-representative surveys provide evidence of increased life satisfaction, trust, and religious observance, suggesting a possible explanation for the fall in hospital admissions and suicides after an earthquake.

Disciplines :

Special economic topics (health, labor, transportation...)

Author, co-author :

BERTINELLI, Luisito ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Department of Economics and Management (DEM)

MAHE, Clotilde ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance > Department of Economics and Management > Team Michel BEINE ; United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, Netherlands

Strobl, Eric; Department of Economics, University of Bern, Switzerland

External co-authors :

Language :

English

Title :

Earthquakes and mental health

Publication date :

September 2023

Journal title :

World Development Forum

ISSN :

0305-750X

eISSN :

1873-5991

Publisher :

Elsevier Ltd

Volume :

169

Pages :

106283

Peer reviewed :

Peer reviewed

Additional URL :

https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0305750X23001018?httpAccept=text/xml

Funding text :

We would like to thank Celine Beauval, Philipp Hessel and Sergio Parra-Cely for comments and suggestions.

Available on ORBilu :

since 13 December 2024

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