Global South Energy Assistance, Environmental Risk, and Household Health Effects

Energy assistance programs aim to improve the energy and environmental conditions of the recipient countries. However, energy aid can also have potential health effects for households, which remain relatively underexplored in the literature. We use a set of regression and mechanism models with panel data from 113 countries spanning from 2002 to 2020. Our results show that energy aid inhibits household health losses from air pollution-induced premature mortality. Also, the household health losses differ among demographic groups and geographical regions. We then analyze the moderating and mediating effects of key factors. The efficiency of energy aid varies notably among the males, children, and high-income groups. Furthermore, energy aid helps alleviate household health losses across regions and government quality and social development enhance the health benefits. Financial development and low-carbon energy transition are crucial impact channels, which means that energy aid indirectly reduces household health losses by facilitating financial development and low-carbon energy transition of recipient countries. Finally, we propose implications for greater energy aid utilization and better sustainable development pathways.