Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? The Long-run Health Consequences of the Hurricanes

I explore the long-run impacts of hurricanes on behavioral health outcomes using individual-level panel data. Several studies investigate the direct effects of hurricanes on economic growth, labor market outcomes, and other outcomes (Belasen and Polachek 2008; Strobl 2011; Deryugina et al. 2018). What is mostly missing in the literature is estimates of the indirect and long-term costs of hurricanes. The long-term effect of hurricanes on behavioral health outcomes, especially, are ignored. In this paper, I study the long-run impact of hurricanes on mental health and risky health behaviors of individuals in hurricane-affected counties between 1999 and 2015. I employ a difference-in-differences model that exploits the fact that hurricane hits vary by county within the states most frequently hit by hurricanes.Preliminary results suggest that exposure to hurricanes are associated with worse mental health and increases in smoking and drinking. In addition, exposure to hurricane increases the probability of being a smoker by 1.4 percentage points (8.7% of the mean) and a binge drinker by 2.7 percentage points (21% of the mean) in the long-run. The intensity of smoking and drinking per day also increase among people exposed to hurricanes. This study contributes to the literature examining the indirect and long-term impacts of the US hurricanes on behavioral health outcomes and is one of the first to look at the higher order costs of hurricanes.