Lead in Drinking Water and Child Health: Evidence From Jackson, Mississippi

ABSTRACT

This paper quantifies the impact of prenatal exposure to lead in drinking water on infant health at birth by exploiting a quasi‐experiment in Jackson, Mississippi. This setting provides a unique context where behavioral changes to avoid lead‐contaminated water are limited due to delayed water testing and dissemination of information about lead contamination. We apply synthetic control using other US cities and Mississippi counties as donors to identify the effect of lead exposure on birth outcomes. We find that prenatal lead exposure in Jackson increased the incidence of low birth weight by approximately 1.5 percentage points, relative to a synthetic Jackson.