Abstract
This study aims to investigate the effects of air quality on child mortality in develo** countries. We consider annual data covering the period from 2010 to 2016 of 58 countries and estimate the empirical models using recently developed panel quantile regression with the method of moments (MM-QR). It is found that outdoor air quality (measured by the concentration of PM2.5 in the air) has a positive and significant effect on total child mortality, post-neonatal mortality, and under-five child mortality. However, its effect on neonatal mortality is not statistically significant at lower quantiles. Furthermore, Household air pollution (HAP) also has a positive and significant effect on total child mortality, neonatal mortality, and under-five child mortality. The effect of HAP on post-neonatal mortality is not significant in most cases. Overall, the adverse effect of HAP is larger than the PM2.5. For instance, a 1% increase of PM2.5 concentration in the outdoor causes 0.231% total child mortality due to respiratory diseases at \(\tau =0.5\), while a 1% increase of HAP causes 0.532% total child mortality at the same quantile. In many cases, the coefficients of PM2.5 and HAP increase at the higher quantiles, supporting asymmetric effects of pollutants on child mortality. However, per capita income, access to basic drinking water and sanitation facilities, and domestic and external health expenditures significantly reduce child mortality. On the contrary, open defecation increases mortality. Consequently, policymakers should take adequate measures to improve indoor and outdoor air quality to combat child mortality due to respiratory diseases in develo** countries. They should also take initiatives to enhance per capita income, basic drinking water, and sanitation facilities, domestic and external health expenditures, and public awareness against open defecation.
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Notes
The State of Global Air (SOGA) measures HAP as the ratio of each country’s households where solid fuels are used for any purpose (for instance, cooking, heating, or lighting). The SOGA compiles data from the WHO and other surveys administered in different regions on practices of cooking and consumption of fuel for various purposes. Furthermore, outdoor PM2.5 is expressed as the annual mean value of exposure of a country’s population to intensities of suspended particulate matter in urban and rural areas, which is 2.5 μm and smaller in aerodynamic diameter.
Table 7 presents the list of considered develo** countries by region in the Appendix.
The Websites of data sources are as follows: (i) the Maternal and Child Epidemiology Estimation Group (https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.ChildMort?lang=en), (ii) the State of Global Air (https://www.stateofglobalair.org), (iii) World Development Indicators (https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators).
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NH and WM conceptualized and designed the study. Data collections were done by NH and WM. WM analyzed the data, NH wrote the first draft, and NH and WM wrote the final draft. All the authors contributed to the critical reviews. All the authors examined the entire manuscript and approved it for submission.
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Nazmul Hassan and S. M. Woahid Murad are indebted to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on the earlier version of this manuscript.
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Hassan, N., Murad, S.M.W. Does air pollution increase child mortality? Evidence from 58 develo** countries. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 28913–28932 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18319-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18319-z