Melissa A. Thomasson

The Political Economy of Saving Mothers and Babies: The Politics of State Participation in the Sheppard-Towner Program

Enacted in 1922 and repealed in 1929, the Sheppard-Towner program gave federal matching money to states to provide public health education to mothers. We examine variation in state participation in the program, and find that the timing of womens suffrage had an important impact. However, we find that the effect of suffrage was short-lived and did not influence public health spending after the programs repeal. We also find no evidence of a “demonstration effect.” On average, the states that continued activities after Sheppard-Towner ended were those that had sizable public health budgets before the program had even begun.

Saving babies: the impact of public education programs on infant mortality.

We take advantage of unique data on specific activities conducted under the Sheppard-Towner Act from 1924 through 1929 to focus on how public health interventions affected infant mortality. Interventions that provided one-on-one contact and opportunities for follow-up care, such as home visits by nurses and the establishment of health clinics, reduced infant deaths more than did classes and conferences. These interventions were particularly effective for nonwhites, a population with limited access to physicians and medical care. Although limited data on costs prevent us from making systematic cost-benefit calculations, we estimate that one infant death could be avoided for every

The Declining Contribution of Socioeconomic Disparities to the Racial Gap in Infant Mortality Rates, 1920–1970

1,600 (about

From Sickness to Health: The Twentieth-Century Development of U.S. Health Insurance

20,400 in 2010 dollars) spent on home nurse visits.

The Importance of Group Coverage: How Tax Policy Shaped U.S. Health Insurance

This article examines the racial gap in infant mortality rates from 1920 to 1970. Using state-level panel data with information on income, urbanization, womens education, and physicians per capita, we can account for a large portion of the racial gap in infant mortality rates between 1920 and 1945. The educational gap between white and nonwhite women was especially important in this regard. In the postwar period, socioeconomic characteristics account for a declining portion of the racial infant mortality gap. We discuss the postwar experience in light of trends in birth weight, maternal characteristics, smoking and breast-feeding behavior, air pollution, and insurance coverage.