Air Pollution and Children’s Respiratory Health: A Cohort Analysis

This paper uses a large and representative database of multiple birth cohorts to study relationships between air pollution exposure and non-infant children’s respiratory health outcomes. We observe several years of early-life health treatments for each of nearly 700,000 children. Three distinct research designs account for potential socioeconomic, behavioral, seasonal, and economic confounders. We find that marginal increases in carbon monoxide and ground-level ozone are associated with statistically significant increases in children’s contemporaneous respiratory treatments. We also find that carbon monoxide exposure over the previous year has an effect on children’s health that goes above and beyond contemporaneous exposure alone.