Author : Seema Jayachandran
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 49 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (12 download)
Book Synopsis Modern Medicine and the 20th Century Decline in Mortality by : Seema Jayachandran
Download or read book Modern Medicine and the 20th Century Decline in Mortality written by Seema Jayachandran and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper studies the contribution of sulfa drugs, a groundbreaking medical innovation in the 1930s, to declines in U.S. mortality. For several often-fatal infectious diseases, sulfa drugs represented the first effective treatment. Using time-series and difference-in-differences methods (with diseases unaffected by sulfa drugs as a comparison group), we find that sulfa drugs led to a 25 to 40 percent decline in maternal mortality, 17 to 36 percent decline in pneumonia mortality, and 52 to 67 percent decline in scarlet-fever mortality between 1937 and 1943. Altogether, they reduced mortality by 2 to 4 percent and increased life expectancy by 0.4 to 0.8 years. We also find that sulfa drugs benefited whites more than blacks.