The Effect of Lead Exposure on Children’s Learning in the Developing World: A Meta-Analysis★

Lee Crawfurd, Rory Todd, Susannah Hares, Justin Sandefur and Rachel Silverman Bonnifield

The World Bank Research Observer, 2025, vol. 40, issue 2, 229-260

Abstract: Around half of children in low-income countries have elevated blood-lead levels. What role does lead play in explaining low educational outcomes in these settings? We conduct a new systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies on the relationship between lead exposure and learning outcomes. Adjusting for observable confounds and publication bias yields a benchmark estimate of astandard-deviation reduction in learning per natural log unit of blood lead. As all estimates are non-experimental, we present evidence on the likely magnitude of unobserved confounding, and summarize results from a smaller set of natural experiments. Our benchmark estimate accounts for over a fifth of the gap in learning outcomes between rich and poor countries, and implies moderate learning gains from targeted interventions for highly exposed groups ( 0.1 standard deviations) and modest learning gains ( standard deviations) from broader public health campaigns.

Keywords: lead poisoning; child education; developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wbro/lkae010 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:wbrobs:v:40:y:2025:i:2:p:229-260.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The World Bank Research Observer is currently edited by Peter Lanjouw

More articles in The World Bank Research Observer from World Bank Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().