2020

Author(s): Mccoy SJ, Zhao XX

We estimate the effects of wildfire smoke exposure on infant health. Exposure to wildfire smoke is determined using the latitude and longitude coordinates corresponding to each infant's home address and a fine-scaled spatial dataset of wildfire smoke plumes constructed in GIS from satellite images of the landscape. Using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, model estimates show that exposure to wildfire smoke leads to a .034 increase in the probability of low birthweight.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2020.1730747