Air pollution and infant health: lessons from New Jersey
Open accessAbstract
We examine the impact of three "criteria" air pollutants on infant health in New Jersey in the 1990s by combining information about mother's residential location from birth certificates with information from air quality monitors. Our work offers three important innovations. First, we use the exact addresses of mothers to select those closest to air monitors to improve the accuracy of air quality exposure. Second, we include maternal fixed effects to control for unobserved characteristics of mothers. Third, we examine interactions of air pollution with smoking and other risk factors for poor infant health outcomes. We find consistently negative effects of exposure to carbon monoxide (CO), both during and after birth, with effects considerably larger for smokers and older mothers. Since automobiles are the main source of carbon monoxide emissions, our results have important implications for regulation of automobile emissions.
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Studies in animal models (rodents) and humans described developmental effects of air pollution following prenatal and early life exposure, such as altered neuronal differentiation, impaired cognitive functions, and white matter abnormalities.
“Studies in animal models (rodents) and humans described developmental effects of air pollution following prenatal and early life exposure, such as altered neuronal differentiation, impaired cognitive functions, and white matter abnormalities (89–91).”
From Gene × Environment Interactions in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Role of Epigenetic Mechanisms (2014) · cites this paper as [89]
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- Authors
- Currie, J., Neidell, M., & Schmieder, J. F.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Currie, Janet
- Venue
- Journal of Health Economics
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-05
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 688-703
- ISSN
- 0167-6296 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2727943
- OpenAlex
- W3025726403
- Cited by
- 509
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 52 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 35 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 11.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Health Economics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD047879, R21HD055613)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Air Quality and Health Impacts
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Indoor Air Quality and Microbial Exposure
- Keywords
- air pollution, infant health, carbon monoxide, maternal smoking, maternal age, air quality exposure, vehicle emissions, birth outcomes, New Jersey
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Air Pollution, Algorithms, Birth Weight, Carbon Monoxide, Female, Humans, Infant, Infant Mortality, Infant Welfare, Infant, Newborn, New Jersey, Young Adult
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