Sanitation and child health in India
Sanitation and child health in India
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DOI：
10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.005
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发表时间：
2018-07-01
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
Andres Rodriguez-Lesmes, Paul
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Augsburg, Britta;Andres Rodriguez-Lesmes, Paul
我们的研究有助于理解增长迟缓的关键驱动因素，这是一个被广泛认为是人力资本发展的主要障碍的因素。具体而言，我们研究了卫生设施的覆盖面和使用对儿童身高的年龄在半城市设置在印度北方。虽然卫生设施-广义上被定义为通过防止人类接触危险废物，特别是人类废物，促进健康的卫生手段-长期以来一直被认为是疾病预防和初级保健方案的一个不可或缺的要素，但最近对低收入国家卫生干预措施进行的大量影响评价研究没有发现任何健康改善。我们通过工具变量方法，利用原材料建筑价格的变化，解决卫生覆盖率的内消问题。这样做，我们发现，卫生设施覆盖率在生命最初几年的身高增长中起着重要和积极的作用，这种因果关系尤其适用于女孩。我们的研究结果表明，旨在增加卫生设施覆盖率的政策，如在这里研究的背景下，不仅有效地减少儿童发育迟缓，而且隐含的目标是女孩。(C)2018作者（S）爱思唯尔有限公司出版
Our study contributes to the understanding of key drivers of stunted growth, a factor widely recognized as major impediment to human capital development. Specifically, we examine the effects of sanitation coverage and usage on child height for age in a semi-urban setting in Northern India. Although sanitation - broadly defined as hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes, particularly human waste - has long been acknowledged as an indispensable element of disease prevention and primary health care programmes, a large number of recent impact evaluation studies on sanitation interventions in low income countries fail to find any health improvements. We address endogeneity of sanitation coverage through an instrumental variable approach, exploiting variation in raw material construction prices. Doing so, we find that sanitation coverage plays a significant and positive role in height growth during the first years of life and that this causal relationship holds particularly for girls. Our findings suggest that a policy that aims to increase sanitation coverage in a context such as the one studied here, is not only effective in reducing child stunting but also implicitly targets girls. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.