Sanitation and child health in India

Britta Augsburg and Paul Andrés Rodríguez-Lesmes
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Paul Andres Rodriguez Lesmes

World Development, 2018, vol. 107, issue C, 22-39

Abstract: Our study contributes to the understanding of key drivers of stunted growth, a factor widely recognized as major impediment to human capital development. Specifically, we examine the effects of sanitation coverage and usage on child height for age in a semi-urban setting in Northern India. Although sanitation – broadly defined as hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes, particularly human waste – has long been acknowledged as an indispensable element of disease prevention and primary health care programmes, a large number of recent impact evaluation studies on sanitation interventions in low income countries fail to find any health improvements. We address endogeneity of sanitation coverage through an instrumental variable approach, exploiting variation in raw material construction prices. Doing so, we find that sanitation coverage plays a significant and positive role in height growth during the first years of life and that this causal relationship holds particularly for girls. Our findings suggest that a policy that aims to increase sanitation coverage in a context such as the one studied here, is not only effective in reducing child stunting but also implicitly targets girls.

Keywords: Sanitation; Stunting; Children; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 O12 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Working Paper: Sanitation and child health in India (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:107:y:2018:i:c:p:22-39

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.02.005

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