The Health Consequences of Aerial Spraying of Illicit Crops: The Case of Colombia - Working Paper 408

Adriana Camacho

No 408, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: This paper exploits the variation in aerial spraying across time and space in Colombia and employs a panel of individual health records in order to study the causal effects of aerial spraying of herbicides (Glyphosate) on short term health-related outcomes. The results show that exposure to the herbicide used in aerial spraying campaigns increases the number of medical consultations related to dermatological and respiratory related illnesses and the number of miscarriages. This finding is robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects, which compares the prevalence of these medical conditions for the same person under different levels of exposure to the herbicide used in the aerial spraying program over a period of 5 years. Also, the results are robust to controlling for the extent of coca cultivation of illicit crops in the municipality of residence.

Keywords: Aerial spraying; Eradication policies; health; Plan Colombia; Glyphosate. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-hea and nep-lam
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cgdev.org/publication/health-consequenc ... ia-working-paper-408

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:408

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Center for Global Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Publications Manager (publications@cgdev.org).