Early Life Exposure to Outdoor Air Pollution: Effect on Child Health in India ; Brookings India Working Paper ; No. 06

This paper examines effect of outdoor air pollution on child health in India by combining satellite PM2.5 data with geo-coded Demographic and Health Survey of India(2016). We use an instrumental variable strategy for identification as local pollution levels may be endogenous due to local household behavioural choices like participation in local fuel wood market, burning crop residue etc. which are not observed in survey data. Our identification strategy relies on use of upwind biomass burning events in neighbouring areas to identify the effect of air pollution on child health. Our results indicate that one standard deviation increase in exposure to pollution during first trimester lowers Height-for-age (by 6.7 percent) and Weight-for-age (by 7.8 percent); the effect is prominent for poor people and Northern states of India which have higher incidence of such events.