IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11901.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When the Boundary Layer Drops: Air Quality and Healthcare Use in Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Piero Basaglia
  • Luis Sarmiento

Abstract

We use the complete set of administrative public healthcare records in Mexico to provide the first nationwide assessment of diagnosed morbidity attributable to PM2.5 exposure across various health conditions in a developing country. By leveraging quasi-random air pollution shocks from variations in the planetary boundary layer height across Mexican municipalities, we determine the causal impact of PM2.5 on healthcare demand. Our findings indicate that a marginal increase in PM2.5 leads to a 2.3% rise in emergency department admission rates. This effect varies significantly by age group and exposure levels. While most of the increase results from respiratory conditions related to air pollution, we also identify significant impacts on several previously unexplored health issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Piero Basaglia & Luis Sarmiento, 2025. "When the Boundary Layer Drops: Air Quality and Healthcare Use in Mexico," CESifo Working Paper Series 11901, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11901
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11901.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    air pollution; public health; development; environmental policy; health inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:ces:ceswps:_11901. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.