Air pollution and children’s health inequalities

Milena Suarez Castillo, David Benatia and Christine Le Thi

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2025, vol. 131, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines the differential impacts of early childhood exposure to air pollution on children’s health care use across parental income groups and vulnerability factors using French administrative data. Our quasi-experimental study reveals significant impacts on emergency admissions and respiratory medication in young children, attributed to air pollution shocks. Using causal machine learning, we identify these health impacts as predominantly affecting 10% of infants, characterized by poor health indicators at birth and lower parental income. Our results indicate that targeted policies based on vulnerability metrics may be more effective than those based solely on exposure levels.

Keywords: Pollution exposure; Environmental inequalities; Causal inference; Heterogeneous treatment effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I18 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:131:y:2025:i:c:s0095069625000336

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2025.103149

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