Air Pollution and Infant Health: What Can We Learn from California's Recent Experience?

By Janet Currie, Matthew Neidell. Social Science Research Network, 2005

792 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We examine the impact of air pollution on infant death in California over the 1990s. Our work offers several innovations: First, many previous studies examine populations subject to far greater levels of pollution. In contrast, the experience of California in the 1990s is clearly relevant to current debates over the regulation of pollution. Second, many studies examine a few routinely monitored pollutants in isolation, generally because of data limitations. We examine four criteria' pollutants in a common framework. Third, we develop an identification strategy based on within zip code variation in pollution levels that controls for potentially important unobserved characteristics of high pollution areas. Fourth, we use rich individual-level data to investigate effects of pollution on infant mortality, fetal deaths, low birth weight and prematurity in a common framework. We find that the reductions in carbon monoxide (CO) and particulates (PM10) over the 1990s in California saved over 1,000 infant lives. However, we find little consistent evidence of pollution effects on fetal deaths, low birth weight or short gestation.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/67ad6707567dbdff786ccf1e79556e763151653d

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In General Health Professions

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

Citations in the corpus

Estimating the effect of air pollution on road safety using atmospheric temperature inversions (2016, background): “These health shocks appear to disproportionally affect vulnerable populations such as infants (Currie and Neidell, 2005), members of poorer households (Jans et al.”
A Morning Stroll (2007, background): “…Center for Health Statistics, 2005; Weiss, 2001), widespread and well documented adverse respiratory effects of internal combustion emissions (Currie & Neidell, 2004; Environmental Protection Agency, 2002), and the disproportionate contribution of automobile use to these environmental…”
Regulation-Induced Pollution Substitution (2019, background): “Air pollution regulations can have large benefits (Chay & Greenstone, 2003b; Currie & Neidell, 2005).”
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker (2012, background): “(1997), Ritz and Yu (1999), Friedman et al. (2001), Maisonet et al. (2001), Chay and Greenstone (2003a), Chay and Greenstone (2003b), Neidell (2004), Currie and Neidell (2005), Ponce et al. (2005), Lleras-Muney (2010), Neidell (2009), Currie et al.”
Does the effect of pollution on infant mortality differ between developing and developed countries? evidence from mexico city (2016, methodology): “These methodologies fit generally in one of two groups: fixed effects (Currie and Neidell, 2005) and instrumental variables (Chay and Greenstone, 2003; Knittel et al., 2011).”
The Effect of Air Pollution on Mortality in China: Evidence from the 2008 (2016, positive): “As longitudinal data become increasingly available, recent studies have used fixed-effects models to deal with potential bias caused by time-invariant unobserved factors (Currie and Neidell 2005, Currie, Neidell, and Schmieder 2009).”
Every Breath You Take—Every Dollar You’ll Make: The Long-Term Consequences of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (2017, neutral): “Graff Zivin, J. and Neidell, M. (2013). Environment, health, and human capital.”