IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/amjhec/doi10.1086-734081.html

Water is Life, Clean Water Means Health

Author

Listed:
  • Hamid Noghanibehambari
  • Jason Fletcher

Abstract

This study examines the impact of water purification on long-run old-age mortality. We examine the effects of early-life and childhood exposure to improvements in water quality due to citywide water filtration programs in 25 major American cities on later-life old-age longevity of male individuals. We employ data from Social Security Administration death records linked with the 1940 census. The difference-in-difference regressions suggest an improvement in male longevity of about 3.2 months. A series of balancing tests do not reveal evidence that changes in sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals confound the estimates. We also implement a full battery of sensitivity analyses and show that the effect is robust across specifications, subsamples, and functional form checks. Analyses using 1950–70 censuses suggest that a portion of the long-term links can be explained by improvements in individuals’ education and income as a result of early-life exposure to water filtration. We also show that treated cohorts reveal improvements in height and cognitive scores during early adulthood.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamid Noghanibehambari & Jason Fletcher, 2026. "Water is Life, Clean Water Means Health," American Journal of Health Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 199-230.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:doi:10.1086/734081
    DOI: 10.1086/734081
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/734081
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/734081
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/734081?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:amjhec:doi:10.1086/734081. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.