The Health and Education Impacts of Long-Run Exposure to Pollution in Childhood: Evidence from the US Army

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The Health and Educational Impacts from Long-Run Exposure to Pollution in Childhood: Evidence from the US Army (30 lines) A large body of research documents that childhood circumstances have significant long-term effects on individuals' lifetime outcomes (Almond et al. 2018). We aim to assess the causal effect of long-term air pollution exposure throughout childhood on the health and education of children and young adults. We specifically focus on the pollutant fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which has detrimental effects on the body because it penetrates deep into the lungs and crosses over to the bloodstream. There are many studies that suggest that long term PM2.5 exposure is associated with harm to both health and cognition. However, because children exposed to higher levels of air pollution for many years are more likely to come from families of lower socio-economic status, which also impacts health and cognition directly, these studies cannot establish causal effects from PM2.5 exposure over many years. To estimate the causal impacts of long-run pollution exposure, we focus on military children. This focus on the military is important, as previous studies suggest that pollution exposure in military families is determined by the needs of the military rather than the preferences of the soldier, making it independent from the health or socio-economic status of those exposed. Using military personnel records, we will construct a large sample of children followed for up to 20 years. These data will be matched to pollution using state-of-the art satellite-based data. Using administrative data from health insurance claims and education records, we will investigate the impacts of long term PM2.5 exposure on a range of health and education outcomes.