Open AccessDroughts and child health in Bangladesh
Author(s) -
Kien Le,
My Nguyen
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0265617
Subject(s) - in utero , disadvantaged , environmental health , demography , child health , medicine , prenatal exposure , pregnancy , early childhood , pediatrics , psychology , gestation , developmental psychology , fetus , biology , genetics , sociology , political science , law
This paper investigates the extent to which in-utero exposure to droughts influences the health outcomes of Bangladeshi children in early childhood. Exploiting the plausibly exogenous deviations of rainfall from the location-specific norms, we find that deficient rainfall during the prenatal period is harmful to child health. Specifically, in-utero exposure to droughts decreases the height-for-age, weight-for-height, and weight-for-age z-scores by 0.10, 0.11, and 0.11 standard deviations among children under five years old, respectively. Our heterogeneity analyses reveal that the adverse health setbacks fall disproportionately on children of disadvantaged backgrounds. Exploring the differential effects by trimesters of exposure, we further show that experiencing droughts during the second and the third trimesters leaves injurious effects on early childhood health.