Health Behaviors and Prevention within the Family

In this dissertation the causal effects of vaccination timeliness in childhood, the parental transmission efforts in the weight perception context, and the intergenerational preference mechanisms of smoking decisions are analyzed. All research projects are related to the influence of parental norms, attitudes and behavior on their children's health behavior and outcomes. They are sorted by phases in childhood: starting with parental vaccination decisions within the first years of a child's life, followed by shaping a child's weight misperceptions in middle childhood around puberty, and ending with a child's smoking decisions that usually occur in late adolescence. In Chapter 2, parental demand for the first and second measles vaccinations in conjunction with a recommendation adaption of timeliness is considered. This research investigates how changing the recommended timeliness of the second measles dose in childhood two and a half years earlier within the second year of life affects vaccination status, leaving the number of doses during the primary vaccination unchanged within a vaccination policy framework of nonbinding recommendations. The analyses are unique with German data and within the empirical causal framework for timeliness adaption: state variation and a clear shift in the recommendation makes it possible. The causal evidence suggests that the timeliness adaption increased up-to-date vaccination status significantly for both measles doses and that timing of vaccinations is an important tool to achieve desired policy goals. Chapter 3 examines the incorrect weight status perceptions of children around the age of puberty, the transmission of parental norms and role of the intrafamily communication. Building on Bisin and Verdier's (2001) framework, we argue that weight perceptions are being formed during childhood and adolescence. The model distinguishes between direct and indirect perception transmission. In the former, weight perceptions of parents are passed on to children. In the latter, the weight environment serves as a benchmark against which a child evaluates his or her own weight. The theory highlights the role of parental effort that influences the relative importance of the two transmission channels. Using a representative German dataset, there is overwhelming evidence for direct perception transmission and that parental effort, here family communication, plays an important role. Finally, Chapter 4 focuses on parental role-modeling and economic preferences, particularly on the time preference of both parents and child, in order to investigate how they affect a child's smoking decision. Explaining the established positive smoking correlation between parents and children, the underlying mechanism of parental time preference is investigated. The analyses suggests significant effects of time preference for both mothers and fathers on their child’s smoking decision considering influence of health-related behaviors of the parents such as smoking as possible pathways