Impact of sanitation,safe drinking water and health expenditure on infant mortality rate in developing economies

Despite of significant growth in all walks of life, the issue of infant mortality still a major concern in most of the developing economies. The World Development Indicators have reported that 4.45 million infants died across the globe in 2015, meaning that 32 deaths per every 1,000 live births. A number of times, the World Health Organization (WHO) have stressed the significance of sanitation, safe drinking water and healthcare facilities in reducing infant mortality rate, though most developing countries still lacks in these services. Given this background, the present study aims to examine the role of sanitation, water facilities and health expenditure on infant mortality rate across a panel of 84 developing economies using annual data from 1995 to 2013. The study also account for per capita income and depth of food deficiency as the control factors in the model. The findings of this study establish a significant long-run equilibrium association among the variables. The long-run elasticities on infant mortality suggest that improved water and sanitation facilities, health expenditure and per capita income substantially reduce infant mortality rate, while food deficiency increases. Given these findings, we suggest that increasing access to improved water, sanitation and healthcare facilities will significantly reduce child mortality in developing economies around the world.     

Prenatal care: Mechanisms and impacts on infant health and health care utilization

We estimate that prenatal care has positive impacts on health measured at birth, shifts the distribution of future health care utilization away from inpatient care, and find that some of these impacts likely come from an informational mechanism. We also find well child visits are used in a complementary fashion with emergency department care in the production of infant health, suggesting that factors beyond barriers to access may drive the demand for emergency care. Finally, we find differential impacts of prenatal care across racial groups with evidence that the information mechanism may be particularly important for black mothers.     

Environmental justice and enforcement of the safe drinking water act: The Arizona arsenic experience

Environmental justice is concerned with the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. A wide variety of empirical studies have concluded that disparate-impact discrimination does in fact exist since minority and low-income communities are at disproportionate risk for environmental harm. In this paper we examine these issues in the context of enforcing the safe drinking water act (SDWA). Specifically, we focus on the association between race, income, and hazardous levels of arsenic concentration and analyze the broad equity implications of implementing the new arsenic regulation by examining the relationship between community-level exposure to arsenic and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the population in Arizona. The results provide no support for the contention that continued selective implementation and enforcement of the revised SDWA arsenic standard is likely to disadvantage minority or low-income groups disproportionately in Arizona.     

林西县农村饮水安全工程浅析

通过对近年来林西县农村饮水安全工程建设现状及管理情况的例举、总结与分析,提出农村饮水安全问题在规划、施工及管理等各个环节中存在的优点与问题,并结合实际情况提出了一些建议,以期为林西县整个地区的稳定、健康发展提供理论参考。     

Contingent valuation in Korean environmental planning: A pilot application to the protection of drinking water quality in Seoul

This paper describes the application of the contingent valuation (CV) or willingness to pay (WTP) survey technique to a problem of public policy evaluation in Seoul, Korea. Matters of principal interest include: the definition of the problem and policy — protection of Seoul's drinking water supply from disruption by slugs of contaminants in the source river (the Han); adjustments to standard CV techniques and assumptions required by the cultural and physical reality of Seoul; the representativeness of the spatially-drawn sample; estimation of the willingness to pay equation as a check on theoretical validity; and the policy implications of the results. The bottom line is asserted to be that CV may be especially valuable in countries such as Korea that have serious environmental problems and a history of not producing data that might be used in alternative (indirect) benefit estimation exercises. Further, it appears that if care is exercised in adjusting to local reality, the method can be made as successful as it has been in the U.S. and northern Europe.Assoc. Res. Fellow, Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, Seoul, Korea; and Professor of Economics and of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University, respectively. The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice and assistance of their colleagues, Professors Georgine Pion and Junsoo Lee; and the financial support of the Korean Environmental Protection Agency. The usual disclaimer, of course, applies.     

浅析雨水回用技术的应用与发展

从雨水的的特点性质入手，着重介绍了雨水的收集处理与利用。同时提出了城市公共市政用水节水的主要措施，并提出了今后研究的方向和重点。     

浅析雨水回用技术的应用与发展

从雨水的的特点性质入手,着重介绍了雨水的收集处理与利用.同时提出了城市公共市政用水节水的主要措施,并提出了今后研究的方向和重点.     

“修耕植，蓄军资”——曹魏财政建设基本方针述论

曹魏政权的财源主要依赖黄河中下游经济区的农业种植经济 ,汉末以来该地区农业经济遭受严重破坏 ,亟待恢复 ;而曹魏以武立国 ,军粮供给为财政收支的核心问题。这种财政经济背景决定了曹魏确立并长期奉行“修耕植 ,蓄军资”作为财政建设的基本方针。在这一基本方针的指导下 ,曹魏采取有力措施恢复和发展官营与民营的农业种植经济 ,通过分配屯田收益及向自耕农征收租调 ,逐步获得稳定的粮食收入 ,有效地保障军粮供给 ,改善财政状况 ,实现其统一北方并积蓄国力准备统一中国的战略目标。与此同时 ,曹魏统治集团提倡节俭之风 ,也有利于这一财政建设基本方针能较长期地被贯彻执行。     

The effect of forest land use on the cost of drinking water supply: A spatial econometric analysis

Forest land use is often associated with the protection of water resources from contamination and the reduced cost of drinking water supply. This study attempted to measure the value of the forest on the quality of water resources from a contingent market, namely drinking water supply, by estimating variations in drinking water costs as a function of variations in land uses. Spatial correlations were taken into account because of the use of different geographical scales (i.e., water service area and land uses) and the potential existence of organizational and technological spillovers between water services. We found a significant negative effect of forest land use on water costs. We found no evidence of spatial spillovers concerning the management regime but did find that factors related to the scarcity of resources in neighboring water services have an impact on water costs.     

The impact of piped water provision on infant mortality in Brazil: A quantile panel data approach

We examine the impact of piped water on the under-1 infant mortality rate (IMR) in Brazil using a recently developed econometric procedure for the estimation of quantile treatment effects with panel data. The provision of piped water in Brazil is highly correlated with other observable and unobservable determinants of IMR — the latter leading to an important source of bias. Instruments for piped water provision are not readily available, and fixed effects to control for time-invariant correlated unobservables are invalid in the simple quantile regression framework. Using the quantile panel data procedure in Chen and Khan [Chen, S., Khan, S., Semiparametric estimation of non-stationary censored panel model data models with time-varying factor. Econometric Theory 2007; forthcoming], our estimates indicate that the provision of piped water reduces infant mortality by significantly more at the higher conditional quantiles of the IMR distribution than at the lower conditional quantiles (except for cases of extreme underdevelopment). These results imply that targeting piped water intervention toward areas in the upper quantiles of the conditional IMR distribution, when accompanied by other basic public health inputs, can achieve significantly greater reductions in infant mortality.     

Public health investments and the infant mortality gap: Evidence from federal sanitation interventions on U.S. Indian reservations

To what extent do differential levels of investment in public health inputs explain observed differences in health outcomes across socioeconomic and racial groups? This study investigates the impact of 3700 projects that were part of a widespread Federal initiative to improve sanitation infrastructure on U.S. Indian reservations starting in 1960. Sanitation investment substantially reduced the cost of clean water for households, leading to sharp reductions in both waterborne gastrointestinal disease and infectious respiratory disease among Native American infants. The sanitation program was quite cost-effective, in part because improvements in the overall disease environment also reduced infectious respiratory disease among nearby White infants. Despite the health externalities, Federal sanitation interventions explain almost forty percent of the convergence in Native American and White infant mortality rates in reservation counties since 1970.     

Dirty hands on troubled waters: Sanitation,access to water and child health in Ethiopia

In this paper, we investigate the impact of access to drinking water sources and sanitation facilities on the incidence of diarrheal diseases among children below 5 years of age in Ethiopia using the propensity score matching technique with a polychotomous treatment variable. We find that among the water sources traditionally considered as improved, only water piped into dwelling, yard or plot leads to a large percentage point reduction in diarrhea incidence. The other water sources, generally believed as clean, are not effective in reducing diarrhea even compared with some of the unimproved water sources. We also find that some unimproved water sources and sanitation facilities are less inferior than they are believed to be. These results suggest that the traditional way of categorizing different types of improved and unimproved water sources and sanitation facilities into a dichotomous variable, “improved” or “unimproved”, could be misleading as it masks the heterogeneous effects of the water sources and the sanitation facilities.     

State abortion policy and infant health: A simulation model of the impact of hypothetical patterns of state laws proscribing abortion services

Prior research suggests that the availability of abortion services may affect the proportion of observed births with poor outcomes (e.g., low birth weight). Recent Supreme Court decisions and changes in the composition of elected officials of state governments have increased the saliency of state discretion over abortion related policies. This paper presents results from a simulation model of the effects of hypothetical state laws prohibiting abortion on observed measures of infant health in the states regarded as most likely to adopt laws significantly restricting abortion access. Under several model scenarios, both the incidence of low birthweight infants and neonatal mortality among blacks are predicted to increase substantially in states adopting restrictive abortion laws. The predicted impact among whites, however, is relatively small. Helpful comments on previous drafts were provided by Janet Bronstein, Jacob Klerman, and Michael Morrisey. Aaron Stinnett provided excellent research assistance. This research was funded in part by a grant from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (R01-HS06685). The authors are responsible for the views expressed.     

Impact of irrigation water quality on human health: A case study in India

Untreated or partially treated wastewater, which is a negative externality of urban water use, is widely used for irrigation in water scarce regions in several countries including India. While the nutrients contained in the wastewater is considered as beneficial to agriculture, the contaminants present in it pose environmental and health risks. This paper examines the morbidity status, its determinants as well as the cost of illness for households living in the areas irrigated with wastewater in comparison with those using normal quality water. Primary data collected from six villages irrigated with wastewater along Musi River which is fed with wastewater and one control village where normal quality water is used for irrigation has been used for the analysis.It is seen that higher rates of morbidity exist in the wastewater irrigated villages when compared to the control village. Specifically, adult and female morbidity rates are significantly higher than child and male morbidity rates. From the logit analysis it is seen that exposure to wastewater and engagement in activities based on it places the households in higher risk groups to report morbidity. Small and marginal farmers incur higher economic cost of illness. However, it has been difficult to ascertain the cause and effect relationship as most of the households have reported more common illnesses like fever, head ache, skin itching, stomach ailments, etc. The study points out the need for a comprehensive risk assessment and adoption of risk management measures including setting standards for treatment and discharge of wastewater and regulations on the type of uses etc. to prevent unplanned use of untreated or partially treated wastewater while taking into account local conditions.     

State abortion policy and infant health: A simulation model of the impact of hypothetical patterns of state laws proscribing abortion services

Prior research suggests that the availability of abortion services may affect the proportion of observed births with poor outcomes (e.g., low birth weight). Recent Supreme Court decisions and changes in the composition of elected officials of state governments have increased the saliency of state discretion over abortion related policies. This paper presents results from a simulation model of the effects of hypothetical state laws prohibiting abortion on observed measures of infant health in the states regarded as most likely to adopt laws significantly restricting abortion access. Under several model scenarios, both the incidence of low birthweight infants and neonatal mortality among blacks are predicted to increase substantially in states adopting restrictive abortion laws. The predicted impact among whites, however, is relatively small.     

“民间执业，全以契券为凭”质疑

"民间执业,全以契券为凭",这句话有一定道理,但并非绝对正确.明清时期,判断田宅所有权的标准除了契券以外,还有户帖或土地执照、黄册或土地册籍、粮串、买卖田宅时的中人或其他签押人甚至地邻、佃户的证明.就契券来说,也必须是无瑕疵的契书.民间和官方通常通过多种证据证明田宅的归属.明清时期,田宅的归属大致是明晰的,田宅的流转基本上是安全的.     

Evolution of infant and child mortality in Chile: a model

The author contends that birth rate and infant and child mortality rates are jointly determined by demographic, economic, health care, and other influences. Working under this structural assumption, a multiequation model is developed, estimated, and simulated, in which real earnings, unemployment, midwife visits, access to cheap energy, public health expenditures, and degree of urbanization are determinant factors of declining infant and child mortality in Chile. Most notably, mortality declined during a period of increasing unemployment and falling living standards for at least part of the population. The study found all 3 rates to be jointly determined, but by different variables. Specifically, unemployment affected birth rate and child mortality rate, while declining infant mortality was based upon midwife visits, health expenditure, and access to cheap energy. At the policy level, trade-offs often result between infant and child mortality, especially where high birth rates prevail. Where movement along the Phillips curve is possible, higher earnings should be preferred over lower unemployment for the benefit of infant and child mortality. Preferred policy would week to provide a carefully balanced combination of better earnings and more midwife visits.     

Australian beer wars and pub demand: how vertical restraints improved the drinking experience

Recently, Australia's two largest brewers, Carlton and United Breweries and Lion Nathan, have been aggressively competing for market share in the state of Victoria. Among other strategies, the two breweries have implemented vertical restraints in the form of?‘extensive’?agreements with retailers and the outright purchase of pubs. A key outcome of these purchases and agreements is the renovation of many pubs as brewers attempt to attract increasingly sophisticated drinkers. This paper attempts to quantify the value of these renovations and measure their associated impact on consumers, relying on insights from the hedonic literature. A simple, but novel approach, is used to estimate the implicit price of the pub environment and the effects of renovations on that price.