The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Health--A Study of the No.6 Naphtha Cracking Complex in Yunlin
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Hung, Pei-Chen
Abstract
The operation of the No.6 naphtha cracking complex was used as a natural experiment to observe whether the exposure of mother to air pollution would affect the health condition of new born infants. In this paper, total exposure hours to $SO_2$ over 75 ppb are used as the index of air pollution to analyze the health condition of single terms in Yunlin, Ilan, Taoyuan, aohsiung County, Kaohsiung City, using ``born in Yunlin after operation '' and ``born downwind after operation'' as instrument variables to cope with the endogeneity problem. Results showed that, after controlling the parity, the parents’ education background, the age of expectant mothers and month effect, infants born in Yunlin after the operation of the cracking complex would be 102.8 g lower in weight on average. Furthermore, after controls of mothers’ fixed effect, the birth weight would be 100 g lower on average. Similarly, gestation would be 0.44 and 0.528 weeks shorter respectively. Besides, if we consider infants born downwind after the operation, the average birth weight will be 57 g lower, and 67.38 g lower after controlling mothers’ fixed effect, while the gestation would be 0.253 and 0.37 weeks shorter respectively.
Subjects
infant health
air pollution
SO2
birth weight
gestation
premature
SDGs
Type
thesis