The inability to smooth consumption in developing countries is thought to make health vulnerable to sudden economic downturns. However, studies suggesting this relationship often examine events that influence health independently of household income. We address this difficulty by investigating how world coffee price shocks influence child survival in Colombia’s coffee-growing regions, highlighting two important facts: (1) The most important determinants of child health are inexpensive but require large amounts of time, and (2) As the value of time declines with adverse economic shocks, so does the relative price of health. We find that changes in the opportunity cost of time dominate changes in transitory income in child health production: important time- intensive health investments are countercyclical, and mortality at young ages is procyclical. These findings are consistent with growing evidence that the relative price of health is a more powerful determinant of mortality than income