Springing Forward and Falling Back on Health: The Effect of Daylight Saving Time on Acute Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

AbstractWe examine the effects of Daylight Saving Time (DST) on the incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) over three distinct time frames: short, medium, and long run. By exploiting the unique circumstances in Indiana, our findings highlight substantial short-term costs of increased AMI admissions at the spring transition by 27.2%, which last for approximately two weeks, are not displaced by counteractive reductions during the DST period, and are incurred at each transition over the years studied without adaptation. Together, in the context of current policy debates, these findings support terminating time adjustments yet provide little evidence to support permanent DST.