tailieunhanh - AIR POLLUTION, CHILDREN'S HEALTH, AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS: THE EFFECT OF OUTDOOR AIR QUALITY ON ASTHMA

The arrows that point from the box labeled “Information distilled, interpreted, excerpted” indicate where this processing occurs. So for instance, scientists and committees process information before handing it on to policy advisors, and policy advisors do the same before handing information on to policy makers. And at the end of the chain, complex scientific information often gets boiled down to just a few pages and messages that reach the desks of the policy makers themselves. What this means is that a series of people, with whom Apheis has little or no contact, extract what they want from the reports Apheis produces, and interpret it in ways. | AIR POLLUTION CHILDREN S HEALTH AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS THE EFFECT OF OUTDOOR AIR QUALITY ON ASTHMA Matthew J. Neidell Working Paper Number 805 Department of Economics University of California Los Angeles Bunche 2263 Los Angeles CA 90095-1477 September 2001 Air Pollution Health And Socio-Economic Status The Effect of Outdoor Air Quality on Childhood Asthma Matthew J. Neidell UCLA April 2002 Abstract This paper examines the effect of aữ pollution on child hospitalizations for asthma using a unique zip code level panel data set. The effect of pollution is identified using naturally occurring seasonal variations in pollution within zip codes. I also improve on past work by analyzing how the effect of pollution varies by age by including measures of avoidance behavior and by allowing the effect to vary by socioeconomic status SES . Of the pollutants considered carbon monoxide has a significant effect on asthma hospitalizations among children ages 1 to 18. In addition households respond to information about pollution with avoidance behavior especially high SES families suggesting that it is important to account for these endogenous responses when measuring the causal effect of pollution on health. Finally the net effect of pollution is much greater for children of lower SES indicating that pollution is one potential mechanism through which SES affects health. JEL Classifications . 112 J13 J15 Q25 I thank Janet Currie Trudy Cameron Paul Devereux Joe Hotz Ken Chay Michael Greenstone . DeShazo Steven Haider Wes Hartmann and seminar participants at UC-Berkeley UCLA University of Miami BLS Census EPA and RAND for many helpful suggestions. I am also particularly grateful to Bo Cutter for initiating my interest in this topic and to Resource for the Future for graciously providing funding via the Fisher Dissertation Award. Address Box 951477 Los Angeles CA 90095-1477. Email mneidell@. Ỉ. Introduction A primary objective of afr quality policies around the world is .