We leverage the largest polio outbreak in US history, the 1916 polio epidemic, to study how epidemic-related school interruptions affect educational attainment. Using polio morbidity as a proxy for epidemic exposure, we find that children aged 10 and under, and school-aged children of legal working age with greater exposure to the epidemic experienced reduced educational attainment compared to their slightly older peers. These reductions in observed educational attainment persist even after accounting for the influenza epidemic of 1918.

中文翻译：

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流行病会影响受教育程度吗？来自 1916 年脊髓灰质炎流行的证据。

我们利用美国历史上最大规模的脊髓灰质炎疫情，即 1916 年的脊髓灰质炎疫情，来研究与流行病相关的学校中断如何影响教育程度。使用脊髓灰质炎发病率作为流行病暴露的代表，我们发现与年龄稍大的同龄人相比，10 岁及以下的儿童和法定工作年龄的学龄儿童更容易受到流行病的影响，他们的受教育程度较低。即使考虑到 1918 年的流感流行，这些观察到的受教育程度的下降仍然存在。