 Knowledge protects against pollution: The health effects of the cadmium rice event in ChinaXiaohong Chen, Jinhua Zhao and Li Zhou World Development, 2024, vol. 175, issue C Abstract: The paper studies the effects of news media coverage of the 2013 cadmium rice event in China on consumer health outcomes and avoidance behavior. A difference-in-differences analysis shows that the event caused a 2% decrease in the incidence of joint or muscle pain (JMP), a major health outcome of cadmium pollution, in high-cadmium-pollution regions relative to other regions. Individuals with higher income or with more access to traditional TV media or digital media experienced a greater level of JMP reduction. To defend against cadmium pollution, residents in cadmium-polluted regions switched their drinking water from unsafe sources such as surface water to the safe source of deep groundwater and significantly reduced their consumption of rice. Our findings demonstrate the importance of information provision as an informal approach to complement formal environmental regulation and the critical role of news media in environmental regulation and public health. Keywords: Heavy metal pollution; Cadmium rice; Avoidance behavior; Information; Food safety; News media (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:175:y:2024:i:c:s0305750x23002887 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106470 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
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