Dust and Death: Evidence from the West African Harmattan.

Using two decades of data from 12 low-income countries in West Africa, we show that dust carried by trade winds increases infant and child mortality. Health investments respond to dust exposure, consistent with compensating behaviours. Despite these efforts, surviving children still exhibit negative health impacts.

(Mis)information and anxiety: Evidence from a randomized Covid-19 information campaign.

Dispelling misinformation during crises is critical to public health. But information can also induce distress. We ask whether the mode of information delivery affects mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic.

'He was trapped in his own web'-Dependent drinking as a poverty trap: A qualitative study from Goa, India.

Introduction And Aims: Of the Indian population, 2.7% have alcohol dependence, the most severe of alcohol use disorders. Alcohol use disorders have previously been found to be correlated with a range of negative economic outcomes, but dependent drinking has yet to be causally identified as a poverty trap.

Unconditional cash transfers for clinical and economic outcomes among HIV-affected Ugandan households.

Background: HIV infection has profound clinical and economic costs at the household level. This is particularly important in low-income settings, where access to additional sources of income or loans may be limited. While several microfinance interventions have been proposed, unconditional cash grants, a strategy to allow participants to choose how to use finances that may improve household security and health, has not previously been evaluated.

Health, Enterprise, and Labor Complementarity in the Household.

We study the role of household enterprise as a coping mechanism after health shocks. Using variation in the cost of traveling to formal sector health facilities to predict recovery from acute illness in Tanzania, we show that individuals with prolonged illness switch from farm labor to enterprise activity. This response occurs along both the extensive (entry) and intensive (capital stock and labor supply) margins.

Endowments at Birth and Parents' Investments in Children.

Do parents invest more in higher quality children, or do they compensate for lower quality by giving more to children with lower endowments? We answer this question in the context of a large-scale iodine supplementation programme in Tanzania. We find that children with higher programme exposure were more likely to receive necessary vaccines and were breastfed for longer. Siblings of treated children were also more likely to be immunised.

Returns to Treatment in the Formal Health Care Sector: Evidence from Tanzania.

Improving access to the formal health care sector is a primary public health goal in many low-income countries. But the returns to this access are unclear, given that the quality of care at public health facilities is often considered inadequate. We exploit temporal and geographic variation in the cost of traveling to formal sector health facilities to show that treatment at these facilities improves short-term health outcomes for acutely ill children in Tanzania.

Learning, Misallocation, and Technology Adoption: Evidence from New Malaria Therapy in Tanzania.

I study how the misallocation of new technology to individuals who have low returns to its use affects learning and adoption behavior. I focus on antimalarial treatment, which is frequently over-prescribed in many low-income country contexts where diagnostic tests are inaccessible. I show that misdiagnosis reduces average therapeutic effectiveness, because only a fraction of adopters actually have malaria, and slows the rate of social learning due to increased noise.

Firing Costs and Flexibility: Evidence from Firms' Employment Responses to Shocks in India.

A key prediction of dynamic labor demand models is that firing restrictions attenuate firms' employment responses to economic fluctuations. We provide the first direct test of this prediction using data from India. We exploit the fact that rainfall fluctuations, through their effects on agricultural productivity, generate variation in local demand within districts over time.

Psychological distress in Ghana: associations with employment and lost productivity.

Objectives: Mental health disorders account for 13% of the global burden of disease, a burden that low-income countries are generally ill-equipped to handle. Research evaluating the association between mental health and employment in low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is limited. We address this gap by examining the association between employment and psychological distress.

The impact of a novel franchise clinic network on access to medicines and vaccinations in Kenya: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: To study the impact of a new franchise health clinic model (The HealthStore Foundation's CFWShops) on access to vaccinations and treatment for acute illnesses in a nationally representative sample of children in Kenya.

Design: The authors used multivariate linear and count regressions to examine associations between receipt of vaccinations or treatment and proximity to a franchise health clinic, adjusting for individual, household and clinic attributes as well as region fixed effects.

Setting: Demographic and Health Survey data from Kenya, 2008-2009.

Schooling, Child Labor, and the Returns to Healthcare in Tanzania.

We study the effects of accessing better healthcare on the schooling and labor supply decisions of sick children in Tanzania. Using variation in the cost of formal-sector healthcare to predict treatment choice, we show that accessing better healthcare decreases length of illness and changes children's allocation of time to school and work. Children attend school for more days per week-but not for more hours per day-as a result of accessing better healthcare.