Background: Smoking is a leading cause of premature death across contemporary developed nations, but few longitudinal individual-level studies have examined the long-term health consequences of exposure to smoking. Objective: We examine the effect of fetal and infant exposure to exogenous variation in smoking, brought about by state-level cigarette taxation, on adulthood and old-age mortality (ages 55‒73) among cohorts of boys born in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Methods: We use state-of-the-art methods of record linkage to match 1930 and 1940 US full-count census records to death records, identifying early life exposure to the implementation of state-level cigarette taxes through contemporary sources. We examine a population of 2.4 million boys, estimating age at death by means of OLS regression, with post-stratification weights to account for linking selectivity. Results: Fetal or infant exposure to the implementation of state cigarette taxation delayed mortality by about two months. Analyses further indicate heterogenous effects that are consistent with theoretical expectations; the largest benefits are enjoyed by individuals with parents who would have been affected most by the tax implementation. Conclusions: Despite living in an era of continuously increasing cigarette consumption, cohorts exposed to a reduction in cigarette smoking during early life enjoyed a later age at death. While it is not possible to comprehensively assess the treatment effect on the treated, the magnitude of the effect should not be underestimated, as it is larger than the difference between having parents belonging to the highest and lowest socioeconomic groups. Contribution: The study provides the first estimates of long-run health effects from early life exposure to cigarette smoking.

中文翻译：

---

生命早期吸烟暴露与成年和老年男性死亡率：来自关联的美国全面人口普查和死亡率数据的证据（作者：Jonas Helgertz、John Robert Warren）

背景：吸烟是当代发达国家过早死亡的主要原因，但很少有纵向的个体研究探讨吸烟对健康的长期影响。目的：我们研究了胎儿和婴儿暴露于由州级卷烟税带来的外源性吸烟变化对 2007 年出生于美国的男孩群体的成年期和老年死亡率（55-73 岁）的影响。 20 年代和 1930 年代。方法：我们使用最先进的记录链接方法将 1930 年和 1940 年美国全面人口普查记录与死亡记录进行匹配，通过当代来源确定早期生活中接触州级香烟税的实施情况。我们研究了 240 万男孩的人口，通过 OLS 回归估计死亡年龄，并使用分层后权重来考虑关联选择性。结果：胎儿或婴儿接触国家实施的香烟税使死亡率延迟了约两个月。分析进一步表明异质效应与理论预期一致；受益最多的是有父母的个人，他们受税收实施影响最大。结论：尽管生活在一个吸烟量不断增加的时代，但在生命早期减少吸烟的人群在死亡时的年龄却较晚。虽然不可能全面评估治疗对被治疗者的影响，但其影响的程度不应被低估，因为它大于父母属于最高社会经济群体和最低社会经济群体之间的差异。贡献：该研究首次估计了生命早期接触吸烟对健康的长期影响。