Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T14:40:06.473Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Temperature, Disease, and Death in London: Analyzing Weekly Data for the Century from 1866 to 1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2021

W. Walker Hanlon ,
Casper Worm Hansen  and
Jake Kantor
W. Walker Hanlon
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, New York University Stern School of Business – Economics, New York, NY10012, and NBER, 1050 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail: whanlon@stern.nyu.edu
Casper Worm Hansen
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, København, Denmark. E-mail: casper.worm.hansen@econ.ku.dk.
Jake Kantor
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Student, New York University Stern School of Business – Economics, New York, NY10012. E-mail: jkantor@stern.nyu.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using novel weekly mortality data for London spanning 1866-1965, we analyze the changing relationship between temperature and mortality as the city developed. Our main results show that warm weeks led to elevated mortality in the late nineteenth century, mainly due to infant deaths from digestive diseases. However, this pattern largely disappeared after WWI as infant digestive diseases became less prevalent. The resulting change in the temperature-mortality relationship meant that thousands of heat-related deaths—equal to 0.9-1.4 percent of all deaths— were averted. These findings show that improving the disease environment can dramatically alter the impact of high temperature on mortality.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 81 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 40 - 80
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank Vellore Arthi, Alan Barreca, Brian Beach, Robert Margo, Andrew Oswald, the Editor, William Collins, three anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the European Economic Association Meeting, the Copenhagen Business School Inequality Platform’s First Workshop on Climate Change and Inequality, and the 5th Annual Meeting of the Danish Society for Economic and Social History for their helpful comments. Funding for this project was provided by National Science Foundation CAREER Grant No. 1552692.

References

REFERENCES

Alsan, Marcella, and Claudia, Goldin. “Watersheds in Child Mortality: The Role of Effective Water and Sewerage Infrastructure, 1880-1920.” Journal of Political Economy 127, no. 2 (2019): 586–638.Google Scholar
Anderson, D. Mark, Charles, Kerwin Kofi, and Rees, Daniel I.. “Re-Examining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Anderson, D. Mark, Rees, Daniel I., and Wang, Tianyi. “The Phenomenon of Summer Diarrhea and Its Waning, 1910-1930.” Explorations in Economic History 78, (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Äström, Daniel Oudin, Forsberg, Bertil, Edvinsson, Sören, and Rocklöv, Joacim. “Acute Fatal Effects of Short-Lasting Extreme Temperatures in Stockholm, Sweden.” Epidemiology 24, no. 6 (2013): 820–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkins, P. J. “White Poison? The Social Consequences of Milk Consumption, 18501930.” Social History of Medicine 5, no. 2 (1992): 207–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barreca, Alan. “Climate Change, Humidity, and Mortality in the United States.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 63, no. 1 (2012): 19–34.Google Scholar
Barreca, Alan, Clay, Karen, Deschênes, Olivier, Greenstone, Michael, and Shapiro, Joseph S.. “Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the U.S. Temperature-Mortality Relationship over the 20th Century.” Journal of Political Economy 124, no. 1 (2016): 105–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, Rupa, and Samet, Jonathan M.. “Relation between Elevated Ambient Temperature and Mortality: A Review of the Epidemiologic Evidence.” Epidemiologic Reviews 24, no. 2 (2002): 190–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beach, Brian, Ferrie, Joseph, Saavedra, Martin, and Troesken, Werner. “Typhoid Fever, Water Quality, and Human Capital Formation.” Journal of Economic History 76, no. 1 (2016): 41–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaver, M. W. “Population, Infant Mortality and Milk.” Population Studies 27, no. 2 (1973): 243–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bleakley, Hoyt, and Sok, Chul Hong. “Adapting to the Weather: Lessons from U.S. History.” Journal of Economic History 77, no. 3 (2017): 756–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohra-Mishra, Pratikshya, Oppenheimer, Michael, and Hsiang, Solomon M.. “Nonlinear Permanent Migration Response to Climatic Variations but Minimal Response to Disasters.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 27 (2014): 9780–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchan, Alexander, and Arthur, Mitchell. “The Influence of Weather on Mortality.” Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society (1875): 187–263.Google Scholar
Carson, Claire, Hajat, Shakoor, Armstrong, Ben, and Wilkenson, Paul. “Declining Vulnerability to Temperature-Related Mortality in London over the 20th Century.” American Journal of Epidemiology 164, no. 1 (2006): 77–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, Jonathan. “The Contribution of Infrastructure Investment to Britain’s Urban Mortality Decline, 1861-1900.” Economic History Review 72, no. 1 (2019): 233–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chestnut, Lauraine G., Breffle, William S., Smith, Joel B., and Kalkstein, Laurence S.. “Analysis of Differences in Hot-Weather-Related Mortality across 44 U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” Environmental Science & Policy 1, no. 1 (1998): 59–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curriero, Frank C., Heiner, Karlyn S., Samet, Jonathan M., Zeger, Scott L., Lisa, Strug, and Patz, Jonathan A.. “Temperature and Mortality in 11 Cities of the Eastern United States.” American Journal of Epidemiology 155, no. 1 (2002): 80–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, David, and Grant, Miller. “The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The Twentieth-Century United States.” Demography 42, no. 1 (2005): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschênes, Olivier. “Temperature, Human Health, and Adaptation: A Review of the Empirical Literature.” Energy Economics 46 (2014): 606–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschênes, Olivier, and Michael, Greenstone. “Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the U.S.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3, no. 4 (2011): 152–85.Google Scholar
Deschênes, Olivier, and Enrico, Moretti. “Extreme Weather Events, Mortality, and Migration.” Review of Economics and Statistics 91, no. 4 (2009): 659–81.Google Scholar
Ekamper, Peter, van Poppel, Frans, van Duin, Coen, and Garssen, Joop. “150 Years of Temperature-Related Excess Mortality in the Netherlands.” Demographic Research 21, (2009): 385–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, Braga, Alfésio, Luís, Antonella, Zanobetti, and Joel, Schwartz. “The Time Course of Weather-Related Deaths.” Epidemiology 12, no. 6 (2001): 662–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrie, Joseph P., and Werner Troesken. “Water and Chicago’s Mortality Transition, 1850-1925.” Explorations in Economic History 45, no. 1 (2008): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fildes, Valerie. “Breast-Feeding in London, 1905-19.” Journal of Biosocial Sciences 24, no. 1 (1992): 53–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fishback, Price V., Werner, Troesken, Trevor, Kollmann, Michael, Haines, Rhode, Paul W., and Melissa, Thomasson. “Information and the Impact of Climate and Weather on Mortality Rates during the Great Depression.” In The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present, edited by Gary D. Libecap and Richard H. Steckel, 131-67. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Galloway, P. R. “Annual Variations in Deaths by Age, Deaths by Cause, Prices and Weather in London, 1670-1830.” Population Studies 39, no. 3 (1985): 487–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geruso, Michael, and Dean, Spears. “Heat, Humidity, and Infant Mortality in the Developing World.” NBER Working Paper No. 24870, Cambridge, MA, September 2018.Google Scholar
Graff, Zivin, Joshua, and Matthew Neidell. “Temperature and the Allocation of Time: Implications for Climate Change.” Journal of Labor Economics 32, no. 1 (2014): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guha, Sumit. “The Importance of Social Intervention in England’s Mortality Decline: The Evidence Reviewed.” Social History of Medicine 7, no. 1 (1994): 89–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajat, Shakoor, Kovats, R. Sari, Atkinson, R. W., and Haines, Andy. “Impact of Hot Temperatures on Death in London: A Time Series Approach.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 56, no. 5 (2002): 367–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanlon, W. Walker. “London Fog: A Century of Pollution and Mortality, 1866-1965.” NBER Working Paper No. 24488, Cambridge, MA, October 2018.Google Scholar
Hanlon, W. Walker, Hansen, Casper Worm, and Kantor, Jake. “Replication: Temperature, Disease, and Death in London: Analyzing Weekly Data for the Century from 1866-1965.” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-10-31. https://doi.org/10.3886/E125721V1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardy, Anne. “‘Death Is the Cure of All Diseases’: Using the General Registrar Office Cause of Death Statistics for 1837-1920.” Social History of Medicine 7, no. 3 (1994): 472–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Bernard. “Public Health, Nutrition, and the Decline of Mortality: The McKeown Thesis Revisited.” Social History of Medicine 17, no. 3 (2004): 379–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Bernard, and Andrew, Hinde. “Sanitary Investment and the Decline of Urban Mortality in England and Wales, 1817-1914.” History of the Family 24, no. 2 (2019): 339–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, E. W. “Summer Diarrhœa in Cities.” Public Health, March (1899a).Google Scholar
Hope, E. W. “Observations on Autumnal Diarrhœa in Cities.” Public Health 11 (1899b): 660–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huck, Paul. “Shifts in the Seasonality of Infant Deaths in Nine English Towns during the 19th Century: A Case for Reduced Breast Feeding?” Explorations in Economic History 34, no. 3 (1997): 368–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hug, Lucia, Sharrow, David, and You, Danzhen. Levels and Trends in Child Mortality. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund, 2017.Google Scholar
Komisarow, Sarah. “Public Health Regulation and Mortality: Evidence from Early 20th Century Milk Laws.” Journal of Health Economics 56 (2017): 126–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landers, John, and Anastasia, Mouzas. “Burial Seasonality and Causes of Death in London, 1670-1819.” Population Studies 42 (1988): 59–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Chung Hyeok. “Regional Inequalities in Infant Mortality in Britain, 1861-1971. Patterns and Hypotheses.” Population Studies 45 (1991): 55–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luckin, Bill. “Death and Survival in the City: Approaches to the History of Disease.” Urban History Yearbook 7 (1980): 53–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKeown, Thomas, and Record, R. G.. “Reasons for the Decline of Mortality in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century.” Population Studies 16, no. 2 (1962): 94–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKeown, Thomas. The Modern Rise of Population. New York: Academic Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert, and Bell, Frances N.. “Economic Factors in the Decline of Mortality in Late Nineteenth Century Britain.” European Review of Economic History 2, no. 3 (1998): 263–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mooney, Graham. “Did London Pass the ‘Sanitary Test’? Seasonal Infant Mortality in London, 1870-1914.” Journal of Historical Geography 20, no. 2 (1994): 15874.Google Scholar
Newman, George. Infant Mortality: A Social Problem. London: Methuen & Co., 1906.Google Scholar
Newsholme, Arthur. “A Contribution to the Study of Epidemic Diarrhœa.” Public Health (1899).Google Scholar
Newsholme, Arthur. Thirty-Ninth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1909-10: Supplement to the Report of the Board’s Medical Officer Containing a Report by the Medical Officer on Infant and Child Mortality. London: Printed for His Majesty’s Stationary Office by Darling & Sons, Ltd., 1901.Google Scholar
Peters, O. H. “Observations upon the Natural History of Epidemic Diarrhoea.” Journal of Hygiene 10, no. 4 (1910): 602–777.Google Scholar
Petkova, Elisaveta P., Antonio, Gaspamni, and Kinney, Patrick L.. “Heat and Mortality in New York City since the Beginning of the 20th Century.” Epidemiology 25, no. 4 (2014): 554–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szreter, Simon. “The Importance of Social Intervention in Britain’s Mortality Decline c. 1850-1914: A Re-Interpretation of the Role of Public Health.” Social History of Medicine 1, no. 1 (1988): 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szreter, Simon. Health and Wealth: Studies in History and Policy. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Troeger, Christopher, Blacker, Brigette F., Khalil, Ibrahim A., Rao, Puja C., Cao, Shujin, Zimsen, Stephanie R. M., Albertson, Samuel B., Stanaway, Jeffery D., Deshpande, Aniruddha, Abebe, Zegeye et al. “Estimates of the Global, Regional, and National Morbidity, Mortality, and Aetiologies of Diarrhoea in 195 Countries: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.” Lancet Infectious Diseases 18, no. 11 (2018): 1211–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Troesken, Werner. “The Limits of Jim Crow: Race and the Provision of Water and Sewerage Services in American Cities, 1880-1925.” Journal of Economic History 62, no. 3 (2002): 734–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Naomi. “Death in Its Season: Class, Environment and the Mortality of Infants in Nineteenth-Century Sheffield.” Social History of Medicine 5, no. 1 (1992): 71–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Naomi, and Chris, Galley. “Urban-Rural Differentials in Infant Mortality in Victorian England.” Population Studies 49 (1995): 401–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Naomi, and Graham, Mooney. “Infant Mortality in an ‘Age of Great Cities’: London and the English Provincial Cities Compared, c. 1840-1910.” Continuity and Change 9, no. 2 (1994): 185–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, Robert I. The Demography of Victorian England and Wales. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, Robert I., Watterson, P. A., and Woodward, Jerold H.. “The Causes of Rapid Infant Mortality Decline in England and Wales, 1861-1921. Part I.” Population Studies 42, no. 3 (1988): 343–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, Robert I., Watterson, P. A., and Woodward, Jerold H.. “The Causes of Rapid Infant Mortality Decline in England and Wales, 18611921. Part II.” Population Studies 43, no. 1 (1989): 113–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrigley, Edward Anthony, and Schofield, Roger S.. The Population History of England, 1541-1871. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Hanlon et al. Supplementary Materials

Online Appendix
Download Hanlon et al. Supplementary Materials(PDF)
PDF 6.2 MB