Arsenic contamination of drinking water and mental health
Shyamal Chowdhury, Annabelle Krause & Klaus F. Zimmermann
#2016-037
This paper investigates the effect of drinking arsenic contaminated
water on mental health. Drinking water with an unsafe arsenic level for
a prolonged period can lead to arsenicosis and associated illness. Based
on rich and newly collected household survey data from Bangladesh, we
construct several measures for arsenic contamination that include the
actual arsenic level in the respondent's tube well (TW), and past
institutional arsenic test results as well as their physical and mental
health. To account for potential endogeneity of water source, we take
advantage of the quasi-randomness of arsenic distribution and employ the
pre-1999 use of TW as an instrument and structural modelling as
alternatives for robustness checks. We find that suffering from an
arsenicosis symptom is strongly negatively related to mental health,
even more so than from other illnesses. Calculations of the costs of
arsenic contamination reveal that the average individual would need to
be compensated for suffering from an arsenicosis symptom by an amount of
money over 10 percent of annual household income.
Keywords: Arsenic, Water Pollution, Mental Health, Subjective
Well-Being, Environment, Bangladesh
JEL Classification: Q53, I10, I31