A chat with a public health economist

So now I really have to think back to my interview days. And I'm going back to Dr. Angela Fertig, assistant professor in health policy and management.

We began talking about her working paper, "Healthy Baby, Healthy Marriage? The effect of children's health on divorce." I thought this was a great start.

She analyzed data to examine if there is a relationship between a child’s poor health (such as low birth weight) and marriage. If having a child with poor health causes a marriage to break up, Fertig argued that it can also cause the family’s economic status to fall.

She questioned if it was health affecting income or income affecting health.

But with her paper, she answered that it must be health based on looking at the effect of children's health on marriages.

This is a little confusing.

Basically, the sick child causes financial strain, which inevitably causes problems that lead to divorce.

So what does this have to do with the College of Public Health and disparities? Fertig had an answer.

“One small way in which we can reduce health disparities among children by income is to target interventions at helping parents of low birth weight children stay together,” she said.

Sweet.

So we can reduce disparities, theoretically, by helping parents of low birth weight children (the sick ones) stay together. Sounds lofty to me. Good idea, but still lofty and hard to achieve.