Citation

Zhang F, Song T, Cheng X, Li T, Yang Z. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022; 20(1): e751.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph20010751

PMID

36613072

Abstract

This paper constructs an overlapping generations model, including health human capital, to investigate the impact of transportation investment on public health with population mobility. The theoretical analysis shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between transportation infrastructure and population flow, which also exists between transportation and health. Health is affected by transportation from three aspects: positive output effect, negative substitution effect on public health investment, and an indirect effect through population flow. In the empirical part, considered with the infectious diseases, we found that the more intensive the traffic facilities, the greater the population flow, and therefore, the traffic facilities will have a negative impact on health. When population mortality is used to measure the level of public health, transportation improvement will significantly enhance public health with an inverted U-shaped relationship, which is consistent with the theoretical portion.

Language: en

Keywords

public health; government expenditure; population mobility; transportation infrastructure