Surface water quality and infant mortality in China

Abstract

The effects of surface water quality on health and Chinese surface water quality is reviewed. As surface water quality deteriorates, the infant mortality rate first increases and then decreases. The infant mortality rate is the highest in areas where surface water quality is fair. This finding is robust to a variety of specifications and models. Our explanation is that, as surface water deteriorates froma good level, people do not detect a quality change and continue to consume the water, so more infants die. As the water pollution increase more, the low quality becomes obvious, so people reduce their usage of polluted water, and more infants survive. Both the OLS and the ordered-probit selection models show that the infant mortality rate is highest when water quality is fair. In regions with cleaner or more polluted water, the infant mortality rate is lower. The infant mortality rate is the lowest in regions with the most polluted surface water, suggesting that avoidance behavior significantly mitigates the health risks from water pollution.