Urban Water Disinfection and Mortality Decline in Developing Countries

Sonia Bhalotra, Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Grant Miller (), Alfonso Miranda () and Atheendar Venkataramani ()
Additional contact information
Alberto Diaz-Cayeros: Stanford University
Grant Miller: Stanford University
Alfonso Miranda: CIDE, Mexico City
Atheendar Venkataramani: Massachusetts General Hospital

No 10618, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Historically, improvements in the quality of municipal drinking water made important contributions to mortality decline in wealthy countries. However, water disinfection often does not produce equivalent benefits in developing countries today. We investigate this puzzle by analyzing an abrupt, large-scale municipal water disinfection program in Mexico in 1991 that increased the share of Mexico's population receiving chlorinated water from 55% to 85% within six months. We find that on average, the program was associated with a 37 to 48% decline in diarrheal disease deaths among children (over 23,000 averted deaths per year) and was highly cost-effective (about $1,310 per life year saved). However, we also find evidence that age (degradation) of water pipes and lack of complementary sanitation infrastructure play important roles in attenuating these benefits. Countervailing behavioral responses, although present, appear to be less important.

Keywords: behavioral responses; clean water; child mortality; chlorination; sanitation; infectious disease; Mexico; diarrhea; cost-effectiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 I18 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - published in: American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2021, 13 (4), 490-520.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp10618.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Urban Water Disinfection and Mortality Decline in Developing Countries (2017)
Working Paper: Urban water disinfection and mortality decline in developing countries (2017)
Working Paper: Urban Water Disinfection and Mortality Decline in Developing Countries (2017)
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:iza:izadps:dp10618

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().