Jacob, N., Munford, L., Rice, N. et al. (1 more author) (2021) Does commuting mode choice impact health? Health Economics, 30 (2). pp. 207-230. ISSN 1057-9230
Abstract
Governments around the world are encouraging people to switch away from sedentary modes of travel towards more active modes, including walking and cycling. The aim of these schemes is to improve population health and to reduce emissions. There is considerable evidence on the latter, but relatively little on the former. This paper investigates the impact of mode choice on physical and mental health. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, we exploit changes in mode of commute to identify health outcome responses. Individuals who change modes are matched with those whose mode remains constant. Overall we find that mode switches affect both physical and mental health. When switching from car to active travel we see an increase in physical health for women and in mental health for both genders. In contrast, both men and women who switch from active travel to car are shown to experience a significant reduction in their physical health and health satisfaction, and a decline in their mental health when they change from active to public transport.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Health Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Commuting mode; health; panel data econometrics |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Economics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Oct 2020 11:02 |
Last Modified: | 04 Feb 2022 12:24 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/hec.4184 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:166752 |