IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6303.html

Combat Exposure and Migraine Headache: Evidence from Exogenous Deployment Assignment

Author

Listed:
  • Cesur, Resul

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Sabia, Joseph J.

    (San Diego State University)

  • Tekin, Erdal

    (American University)

Abstract

Migraine headache is a growing problem for U.S. servicemen deployed in the Global War on Terrorism and has been linked to substantial negative socioeconomic consequences. However, there has been no comprehensive examination of the relationship between combat exposure and migraine headache or its stress-related triggers. Using data drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we exploit exogenous variation in deployment assignment to estimate the effect of combat exposure on migraine headache. We find that those deployed to a combat zone with enemy firefight are at substantially increased risk for migraine headache relative to those deployed to non-combat zones outside the United States or to combat zones without enemy firefight. This relationship is robust to controls for pre-deployment migraine status and is largest for those serving in the Army in the post-9/11 period. We find that combat-induced sleep disorders, stress-related psychological problems, and physical injuries in combat explain 47 to 60 percent of the relationship between combat exposure and migraine headache.

Suggested Citation

  • Cesur, Resul & Sabia, Joseph J. & Tekin, Erdal, 2012. "Combat Exposure and Migraine Headache: Evidence from Exogenous Deployment Assignment," IZA Discussion Papers 6303, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6303.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ackerman, Adam, 2022. "The effect of combat exposure on sexually transmitted diseases," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    2. Ackerman, Adam & Porter, Ben, 2022. "The effect of combat exposure on financial problems," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 241-257.
    3. Jan Goebel & Christian Krekel & Tim Tiefenbach & Nicolas Ziebarth, 2015. "How natural disasters can affect environmental concerns, risk aversion, and even politics: evidence from Fukushima and three European countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 1137-1180, October.
    4. Resul Cesur & Alexander Chesney & Joseph J. Sabia, 2016. "Combat Exposure, Cigarette Consumption, And Substance Use," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1705-1726, July.
    5. Ackerman, Adam & Porter, Ben & Sullivan, Ryan, 2020. "The effect of combat exposure on veteran homelessness," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    6. Laura Armey & Thomas J. Kniesner & John D. Leeth & Ryan Sullivan, 2022. "Combat, casualties, and compensation: Evidence from Iraq and Afghanistan," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(1), pages 66-82, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.