When Water Turns Toxic: The Impact of River Pollution on Child Nutritional Status in India
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2024-07-11
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This thesis examines the relationship between river water pollution and child nutritional status in India by combining two rounds of the Indian Human Development Survey with river water quality data from GEMStat. The sample consists of 2,508 children who were aged 0-5 years old in 2005 and were reinterviewed in 2012, matched to district-level yearly average river water pollution values. Lags of water pollution are included in the analysis to account for the delayed effect on health. A multi-way fixed effect regression model is used to estimate the relationship over time. The results indicate that a 10% increase in river water pollution levels from the previous year decreases the nutritional status of an average child in the sample by approximately 0.4%. Further analysis shows that an average child exposed to poor district-level river water quality in the previous year has a 10.5% lower nutritional status than a child from a district with excellent river water quality. Water pollution affects boys and children from households with lower-educated heads more strongly than girls and children from higher-educated households. Urban children are more affected by current levels of pollution, whereas rural children experience a stronger effect from pollution in the previous year.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen