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Prenatal drug use and the production of infant health
Author(s) -
Noonan Kelly,
Reichman Nancy E.,
Corman Hope,
Dave Dhaval
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1171
Subject(s) - endogeneity , medicine , pregnancy , birth weight , obstetrics , low birth weight , longitudinal study , drug , environmental health , prenatal care , pediatrics , demography , psychiatry , population , statistics , genetics , mathematics , pathology , sociology , biology
We estimate the effect of illicit drug use during pregnancy on two measures of poor infant health: low birth weight and abnormal infant health conditions. We use data from a national longitudinal study of urban parents that includes postpartum interviews with mothers, hospital medical record data on the mothers and their newborns, and information about the neighborhood in which the mother resides. We address the potential endogeneity of prenatal drug use. Depending on how prenatal drug use is measured, we find that it increases low birth weight by 4–6 percentage points and that it increases the likelihood of an abnormal infant health condition by 7–12 percentage points. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.