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Impact of hospital delivery on child mortality: An analysis of adolescent mothers in Bangladesh

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  • Pal, Sarmistha

Abstract

New medical inventions for saving young lives are not enough if these do not reach the children and the mother. The present paper provides new evidence that institutional delivery can significantly lower child mortality risks, because it ensures effective and timely access to modern diagnostics and medical treatments to save lives. We exploit the exogenous variation in community's access to local health facilities (both traditional and modern) before and after the completion of the ‘Women's Health Project’ in 2005 (that enhanced emergency obstetric care in women friendly environment) to identify the causal effect of hospital delivery on various mortality rates among children. Our best estimates come from the parents fixed effects models that help limiting any parents-level omitted variable estimation bias. Using 2007 Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey data from about 6000 children born during 2002–2007, we show that, ceteris paribus, access to family welfare clinic particularly boosted hospital delivery likelihood, which in turn lowered neo-natal, early and infant mortality rates. The beneficial effect was particularly pronouncedamong adolescent mothers after the completion of Women's Health Project in 2005; infant mortality for this cohort was more than halved when delivery took place in a health facility.

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  • Pal, Sarmistha, 2015. "Impact of hospital delivery on child mortality: An analysis of adolescent mothers in Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 194-203.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:143:y:2015:i:c:p:194-203
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.08.003
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    2. Saira Parveen Jolly & Tridib Roy Chowdhury & Mahfuzar Rahman & Ariful Alam & Kaosar Afsana, 2020. "Prevention of social exclusion and role of antenatal care by BRAC community health workers in improving safe motherhood and neonatal care in urban slums of Bangladesh," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-20, July.
    3. Adnan M.S. Fakir & Tushar Bharati, 2022. "Health Costs of a "Healthy Democracy": The Impact of Peaceful Political Protests on Healthcare Utilization," Working Paper Series 0522, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    4. Tushar Bharati & Adnan M. S. Fakir, 2022. "Health Costs of a “Healthy Democracy”: The Impact of Peaceful Political Protests on Healthcare Utilization," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-15, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    5. Youjin Hahn & Kanti Nuzhat & Hee-Seung Yang, 2018. "The effect of female education on marital matches and child health in Bangladesh," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 915-936, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bangladesh; Women's health project; Emergency and obstetric care; Access to health facilities; Adolescent mothers; Infant and child mortality indices; Household fixed effects models; Endogeneity and identification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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