Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Using Vital Statistics Natality Data to Assess the Impact of Environmental Policy: The Examples of Superfund, the Toxic Release Inventory, and E-ZPass
EPA Grant Number: R834793Title: Using Vital Statistics Natality Data to Assess the Impact of Environmental Policy: The Examples of Superfund, the Toxic Release Inventory, and E-ZPass
Investigators: Currie, Janet
Institution: Princeton University
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: May 1, 2011 through April 30, 2014
Project Amount: $492,103
RFA: Exploring Linkages Between Health Outcomes and Environmental Hazards, Exposures, and Interventions for Public Health Tracking and Risk Management (2009) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Human Health
Objective:
This study investigated the extent to which geocoded Vital Statistics Natality data collected from birth certificates could be used to assess the impact of environmental hazards. These records cover millions of births (in fact all births) over long periods of time. They include information about maternal background and birth outcomes as well as information about the precise residential location of mothers. Moreover, birth records can be linked to infant death records to yield large samples of infant deaths. Given residential addresses, it is possible to link mothers to information about nearby environmental hazards. It also is possible to link births to the same mother, so that the effect of changes in potential exposure can be assessed. The hypothesis that was investigated is that these large and comprehensive data sets can shed useful light on the effects of environmental hazards. Some of the specific hazards that were investigated included Superfund sites, firms included in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), and contaminants in drinking water. The work successfully demonstrated, through example, that this is a feasible way to use existing data to assess environmental hazards and that it is sensitive enough to detect health effects of relatively low levels of pollution.
Experimental Approach. This project used a unique data base of Vital Statistics Natality records for five large states (Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas) and New York City over the period 1989 to 2011. These data include residential location, which was geocoded using ArcGIS. The data also allow linkage of births to the same mother over time. The linked data were analyzed statistically using STATA, and STATA was used to calculate distances between maternal residences and environmental hazards. Potential confounders will be controlled both by including detailed controls for maternal background and location, and by including mother fixed effects.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
This grant has resulted in six papers either accepted or forthcoming in refereed journals, and two more that have been submitted to journals. In addition to papers demonstrating “proof of concept” by showing that it is feasible to link birth records to data on pollution sources in order to examine health effects, the output from this grant includes survey articles for diverse venues including the Annual Review of Resource Economics, Child Development Perspectives, and Health Affairs, which summarize this approach to measuring environmental effects.
A paper on the effects of proximity to Superfund sites, (“Superfund Cleanups and Infant Health”) was published in the May 2011 Papers and Proceedings of the American Economics Association. The paper focuses on Superfund cleanups and compares infants whose mothers lived less than 2 km from a Superfund site to those who lived between 2 km and 5 km from a site, before and after the cleanups. We find that mothers who live near Superfund sites are more likely to be minority and also more likely to smoke, which would lead to poorer birth outcomes even in the absence of pollution from the site. Hence, it is important to control for these differences when assessing the effects of Superfund and simple comparisons of birth outcomes for those living close and far from a site are likely to be misleading. In contrast to some previous studies, we do not find effects on birth weight, prematurity, or infant death. We do however find a 20 to 25% increase in the incidence of congenital anomalies, which may indicate that infants are most vulnerable to exposure in the first trimester of the pregnancy, when most congenital anomalies occur.
An article, “Inequality at Birth: Some Causes and Consequences,” also was published in the May 2011 Papers and Proceedings of the American Economics Association as the lead article. This paper provides an overview of the evidence linking many environmental factors to health at birth, and of the growing literature showing that health at birth is a predictor of important adult outcomes. The second half of the paper explores the role of environmental pollution. It shows that minority and low income women live closer to Superfund sites and to Toxics Release Inventory (
A survey of so-called “quasi-experimental methods” for measuring the effects of pollution on health using large data sets including Vital Statistics Natality data was published in the prominent policy journal Health Affairs in December 2011 (see http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/12/2391.abstract).
In “Something in the Water: Contaminated Drinking Water and Infant Health,” which was published in August 2013, we examine the effects of exposure to contaminated drinking water during pregnancy on infant health outcomes in New Jersey. To do this, we examine the universe of birth records and drinking water testing results for the state of New Jersey from 1997 to 2007. Our data enable us to compare outcomes across siblings who were potentially exposed to differing levels of harmful contaminants from drinking water while in utero. We find small effects of drinking water contamination on all children, but large and statistically significant effects on birth weight and gestation of infants born to less educated mothers. We also show that those mothers who were most affected by contamination were the least likely to move between births in response to contamination.
The paper “Pollution and Infant Health,” was commissioned by Child Development Perspectives, which is the flagship journal of the Society for Research in Child Development. The paper provides an overview of my recent work linking pollution in a mother’s residential location to infant health. It was published in December 2013.
The paper “What Do We Know About Short and Long Term Effects of Early Life Exposure to Pollution?” summarizes the state of knowledge about this issue for the prestigious Annual Review of Resource Economics, and is forthcoming.
In 2013, we also were able to revise and resubmit a paper about the impact of toxic releases on housing prices and birth outcomes. The paper uses data from the Toxics Release Inventory to identify plants that emit toxic chemicals, along with data on plant openings and closings from the Census bureau to examine the effects of operating toxic plants on birth outcomes and housing prices. Many chemicals emitted during the manufacturing process are suspected to cause injuries to the developing fetus, but relatively little is known about the magnitude of these health effects, and most industrial chemicals have never undergone any toxicity testing. The study uses data on approximately 1,600 plant openings and closings. Our results suggest significant negative effects of proximity to a “toxic” plant on infant health and housing prices. This paper is under consideration at the American Economic Review, the flagship journal of the American Economics Association.
In “The 9/11 Dust Cloud and Pregnancy Outcomes: A Reconsideration,” we examine the impact of the environmental catastrophe caused by the collapse of the World Trade Center. The collapse released a million tons of toxic dust and smoke into the air of lower Manhattan, making it the largest environmental disaster to have ever befallen New York City (NYC). It is puzzling then that the literature has so far shown little consistent evidence of effects of in utero exposure to the dust cloud on birth outcomes. However, inference about the effects of the dust cloud is complicated by pre-existing differences between the mothers living in different neighborhoods of Manhattan and the use of small convenience samples. This paper uses a sample of all births in utero during 9/11 in NYC and their siblings. Using sibling comparisons to control for maternal differences we show that residence in the area affected by the 9/11 dust cloud had strong effects on gestation length, the incidence of low birth weight, and whether the infant was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after birth. The effects are driven by first trimester exposure and are much stronger for boys than for girls. The estimates are robust to choosing alternative control areas and to the exclusion of births after 9/11. This paper is under review.
Conclusions:
The research studies supported under this grant demonstrate that Vital Statistics Natality records are a comprehensive and sensitive source of information about the health effects of environmental pollution. These records have several advantages. First, all births are recorded. Second, information about parental address and characteristics can be used to focus on particular areas of concern, and to examine heterogeneity in the effects of pollutants on different groups. Third, the large size of the data sets lends statistical power to these analyses. The papers show that criterion air pollutants, and air pollution from toxic releases and motor vehicle exhaust have detectable effects on infant health among families that live within a radius of 1 to 2 miles from a point source. We also have shown that water pollutants in drinking water can have negative effects.
Journal Articles on this Report : 8 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 13 publications | 8 publications in selected types | All 8 journal articles |
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Currie J, Ray SH, Neidell M. Quasi-experimental studies suggest that lowering air pollution levels benefits infants' and children's health. Health Affairs 2011;30(12):2391-2399. |
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Currie J. Inequality at birth: some causes and consequences. American Economic Review 2011;101(3):1-22. |
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Currie J, Greenstone M, Moretti E. Superfund cleanups and infant health. American Economic Review 2011;101(3):435-441. |
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Currie J, Graff Zivin JS, Meckel K, Neidell M, Schlenker W. Something in the water: contaminated drinking water and infant health. Canadian Journal of Economics 2013;46(3):791-810. |
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Currie J. Pollution and infant health. Child Development Perspectives 2013;7(4):237-242. |
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Currie J, Zivin JG, Mullen J, Neidell M. What do we know about short-and long-term effects of early-life exposure to pollution? Annual Review of Resource Economics 2014;6(1):217-247. |
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Currie J, Davis L, Greenstone M, Walker R. Environmental health risks and housing values: evidence from 1,600 toxic plant openings and closings. American Economic Review 2015;105(2):678-709. |
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Currie J, Schwandt H. The 9/11 dust cloud and pregnancy outcomes: a reconsideration. The Journal of Human Resources 2015 Nov 30 [Epub ahead of print] doi:10.3368/jhr.51.4.0714-6533R. |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Superfund, hazardous waste, toxic releases, electronic toll collection, pollution, E-Z pass, infant health, vital statistics, infant mortality, birth weight, low birth weight, gestationProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.