The Effect Of Early-Life Tangshan Earthquake Exposure On Long-Term Health Outcomes

At present,the construction of “Healthy China” is being vigorously promoted and people are paying more and more attention to health,the government is striving to provide health services from the fetus to the end of life,and realize the full range of whole-cycle health protection.According to the Fetal Origins Hypothesis,some chronic health conditions can be traced back to fetal stage and expose to stress in the fetus can lead to undergrowth,which may have long-term effects.In this paper,a case study of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that occurred in Tangshan City,Hebei province,China in July 1976 was conducted to test this hypothesis and analyze the causal relationship between early earthquake exposure and long-term health outcomes.Use the data of China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2010,which contains basic information about the place of birth of the individual,so as to avoid bias caused by migration to other places due to work and study.Based on the overlap between birth time and earthquake time and the difference of geographical location,we define that the period of fetus and under 3 years old at the time of earthquake happened as early life stage,and Beijing City,Tianjin City and Hebei province as the areas severely affected by the earthquake,the difference-in-difference identification strategy was adopted for inference.Conclusions are as follows: first,in terms of physical health,earthquake exposure in early life have no significant effects on self-rated health,the positive effects of mortality selection or fertility selection outweigh the negative effects of the earthquake itself,and the positive effect of sample selection is similar to the negative effect of earthquake and tends to cancel each other,there do not find significant results;Second,earthquake exposure in early life have negative impacts on mental health into middle,more precisely,the probability of feeling happiness decreased by 3.3percentage points,being satisfied with life decreased by 7.3 percentage points,being stressed in the past month increased by 4.5 percentage points and feeling hopeless about future increased by 4.1 percentage points,all of those results are robust and significant;Third,in terms of heterogeneity,female,and groups with rural hukou and mothers with lower education were impacted more severely.In the long term,earthquake exposure in early life have no significant impacts on physical health but have negative impacts on mental health in middle age.Under the background of global warming,the COVID-19 and China’s efforts to encourage births,it is recommended to start from personal,family and school aspects,in particular,to increase early psychological intervention for young children and avoid carrying this factor into middle and later life and causing greater harm.