胎兒時期的病毒接觸與未來發展是否相關？ ──以1918年全球大流感對台灣教育程度的影響為例

Abstract

本篇論文以教育程度為例，探討1918年全球大流感對台灣的長期影響。文中論述的基礎在於，幼年經歷流行性感冒高峰而存活者，健康狀況已受到影響，並會進一步影響成長後的表現，如教育程度。本篇論文使用1980年台閩地區戶口及住宅普查資料顯示出，曾於1918年經歷流行性感冒高峰期與地區的個體，其成長後的教育程度較低。以孕婦死亡率做為衡量胎兒期受1918年流行性感冒影響程度的指標，可計算出1918年流行性感冒大約使孕婦死亡率增加0.1%，並進而造成受教育年數降低0.13年。以該年代之平均受教育年數為2.785年來看，1918年流行性感冒使受教育年數在比例上降低0.4668個百分比。

This paper studies the long-term educational impact of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Taiwan. We first postulate a hypothesis that cohorts who survived after the disease in their early lives could have been burdened with inferior health condition, which accordingly would pose a threat to adulthood performances such as education level. We then use data from the 1980 Census in Taiwan and show that cohorts born in regions and periods with more severe exposure to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic have lower level of education. Using maternal mortality as a proxy to influenza exposure in utero, we calculate that an exposure to the 1918 influenza, which is equivalent to a 0.1% increase for the maternal mortality rate, can reduce the educational years by 0.13 years, or 4.668%, given that the average years of education in this cohort is 2.785 years.