291 Campus Drive
Stanford
CA 94305
Intergenerational Health Mobility: Magnitudes and Importance of Schools and Place
Nascent research suggests intergenerational health mobility may be relatively high and non-genetic factors may make room for policy intervention. This project broadens this direction by considering heterogeneous intergenerational health mobility in spatial and contextual patterns. With 14,797 parent-child pairs from a school-based representative panel survey of adolescents (Add Health), this study finds large spatial variation in intergenerational health mobility in the United States. On average relative mobility in this sample is approximately 0.17 and expected health rank for children of parents at the 25th percentile of parent health is 47. These metrics however mask substantial spatial heterogeneity. Descriptive school- and contextual-level correlates of this spatial variation indicate localities with higher proportions of non-Hispanic blacks, school PTAs, or a school health education requirement may experience greater health mobility.