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Title: Minimum Drinking Age Laws and Infant Health Outcomes
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Watson, Tara Elizabeth Fertig, Angela R. |
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Minimum Drinking Age Laws and Infant Health Outcomes NBER Working Paper No. 14118, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2008. Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14118.pdf Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior; Birthweight; Ethnic Differences; Fertility; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Racial Differences; Record Linkage (also see Data Linkage); State-Level Data/Policy Alcohol policies have potentially far-reaching impacts on risky sexual behavior, prenatal health behaviors, and subsequent outcomes for infants. We examine whether changes in minimum drinking age (MLDA) laws affect the likelihood of poor birth outcomes. Using data from the National Vital Statistics (NVS) for the years 1978-88, we find that a drinking age of 18 is associated with adverse outcomes among births to young mothers -- including higher incidences of low birth weight and premature birth, but not congenital malformations. The effects are largest among black women. We find suggestive evidence from both the NVS and the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) that the MLDA laws alter the composition of births that occur. In states with lenient drinking laws, young black mothers are more likely to have used alcohol 12 months prior to the birth of their child and less likely to report paternal information on the birth certificate. We suspect that lenient drinking laws generate poor birth outcomes because they increase the number of unplanned pregnancies. |
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Bibliography Citation
Watson, Tara Elizabeth and Angela R. Fertig. "Minimum Drinking Age Laws and Infant Health Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 14118, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2008. |