The impact of the Iraq war on children´s health outcomes

• Autor(a) principal: Sievers, Jacob Fabian
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/29818
• topic: Health; Child; Iraq war; In-utero; Saúde; Crianças; Guerra do Iraque; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

War and violent shocks can have long-term effects on health and human capital. Children in younger years are particularly vulnerable. This paper quantifies the effect of war on children anthropometrics using linked household and health survey data, complemented with administrative records from Iraq. The identification strategy exploits differences in war-intensity across households and areas. Estimates indicate that height-for-age Z-scores are lower for children exposed to higher war-intensity. War also leads to stunting and severe stunting among children in Iraq with potentially long-run consequences. These results are found both when using self-reported survey data on injury or mortality in the children’s households and administrative data on injury and mortality by governorate. Furthermore, impacts are larger on children exposed to the war in utero than those exposed later in life. Inadequate food supply does not appear to drive these results. Instead, disruptions in access to health care services and income effects from wage and/or job loss among adults are important channels through which the Iraq War lead to detrimental long-term effects on children's health. The findings are robust to including region-specific and socioeconomic controls, as well as excluding displaced households.