Arbeitspapier
Something in the Pipe: Flint Water Crisis and Health at Birth
Flint changed its public water source in 2014, causing severe water contamination. We estimate the effect of in utero exposure to polluted water on health at birth using the recent Flint water crisis as a natural experiment. Matching vital statistics birth records with various sources of data, we employ a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach as well as a Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to identify its causal impact on key birth outcomes. Our results suggest that the crisis modestly increased the rate of low birth weight (LBW) by 1.1-1.8 percentage points but had little effect on length of gestation or prematurity. The effects are larger for black or less educated mothers. Children born to disadvantaged mothers demonstrated 1.2-2.0 percentage points (or 10.4-17.4 percent) and 0.2- 0.6 percentage points (or 9.5-28.6 percent) rise in LBW and VLBW, respectively. We find little evidence that the Crisis increased fetal death, suggesting that the scarring effect in utero may dominate the channel of mortality selection. These results survive a rich set of placebo and falsification tests. Finally, our results lend support to three mechanisms at work linking water contamination and birth outcomes, i.e. biological effect, maternal stress, and avoidance actions.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12115
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Health and Inequality
Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
Environmental Economics: Government Policy
- Subject
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water pollution
lead exposure
Flint infants
low birth weight
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Wang, Rui
Chen, Xi
Li, Xun
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
- (where)
-
Bonn
- (when)
-
2019
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Wang, Rui
- Chen, Xi
- Li, Xun
- Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Time of origin
- 2019
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Something in the Pipe: Flint Water Crisis and Health at Birth
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Something in the Pipe: Flint Water Crisis and Health at Birth
Crystal structure of spiro-(2.3'') oxindole-spiro (3.3')-5'-(4-methylsulfanylphenylmethylidene)- 1'-benzyl-4'(1H)-pyridinone-4-(4-methylsulfanylphenyl) hexahydro-1H-pyrrolizine - dichloromethane, C 40 H 39 N 3 O 2 S 2 · CH 2 Cl 2
Comparative analysis of dexmedetomidine, midazolam, and propofol impact on epilepsy-related mortality in the ICU: insights from the MIMIC-IV database
Prediction and verification of novel peptide targets of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B
Evaluating the unconventional monetary policy of the bank of Japan: A DSGE approach
Konzeption und Entwicklung eines EPC-basierten Datennetzwerkes in der Lebensmittel-Supply-Chain
Community-Building on Bilibili: The Social Impact of Danmu Comments
Higher order constraints for the ( $$\beta $$ β -deformed) Hermitian matrix models
Electrical excitability and mechanosensitive currents in sensory neurons : developmental onset, calcium channels and NGF-mediated modulation of mechanotransduction
Optimal stopping investment in a logarithmic utility-based portfolio selection problem
Mean-field stochastic linear quadratic optimal control problems: closed-loop solvability
Late complications caused by the neglected biliary stent
Something in the Pipe: Flint Water Crisis and Health at Birth
Crystal structure of spiro-(2.3'') oxindole-spiro (3.3')-5'-(4-methylsulfanylphenylmethylidene)- 1'-benzyl-4'(1H)-pyridinone-4-(4-methylsulfanylphenyl) hexahydro-1H-pyrrolizine - dichloromethane, C 40 H 39 N 3 O 2 S 2 · CH 2 Cl 2
Comparative analysis of dexmedetomidine, midazolam, and propofol impact on epilepsy-related mortality in the ICU: insights from the MIMIC-IV database
Prediction and verification of novel peptide targets of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B
Evaluating the unconventional monetary policy of the bank of Japan: A DSGE approach
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Community-Building on Bilibili: The Social Impact of Danmu Comments
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Optimal stopping investment in a logarithmic utility-based portfolio selection problem
Mean-field stochastic linear quadratic optimal control problems: closed-loop solvability