Tatyana Deryugina
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
12:10-1:30pm
241 Giannini Hall, UC Berkeley
“Resilient or Scarred? Migration, Mortality, and Morbidity after Natural Disasters”
Abstract
Extreme weather events generate severe disruption and billions of dollars in economic damages each year, yet their health consequences remain poorly understood. We use Medicare claims data and a difference-in-differences research design to estimate the effects of tornadoes and wildfires on the mental and physical health of elderly and longterm disabled individuals in the United States. By combining spatially detailed disaster footprint data with 9-digit ZIP Codes of residence, we precisely identify individuals directly exposed to these events as well as those residing in close proximity. We find significant short-run health impacts that extend beyond outcomes easily attributable to the disasters themselves and that are overwhelmingly concentrated among disasteraffected individuals experiencing the highest levels of damage. Longer-run health effects persist only among a small subset of these.