Low-income countries facing high air pollution see their prospects of sustainable growth hampered by the adverse effects of air pollution on human capital accumulation of their workforce. Mitigating exposure to air pollution can alleviate some of the most severe effects on the health and education of the population, especially those school children that will constitute tomorrow’s workforce.
To mitigate some of the most severe effects of air pollution we deploy air purifiers in school classrooms, and we conduct an educational and behavioral intervention for students to minimize their personal exposure to air pollution. We target school children in Delhi's Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) schools during the peak period of air pollution. (specifically, October through January-February). However, due to administrative constraints imposed by the funding bodies, data collection is scheduled to end in December 2024.
We plan to assess the health and educational impacts of our interventions over the mid-to-long term. We are particularly interested in examining two types of effects: (i) cumulative effects resulting from extending the period of time of our treatments during an additional academic semester (from January to April 2025) and contrasting them with short-term effects (evaluated in the soon-to-start RCT); and (ii) persistent effects that could be observed even after discontinuing the treatments. That is, effects possibly persisting through a later period of time (end of the academicyear, in May 2025, and at the beginning the following academic year, in September 2025).
Participants: J. Cristobal Ruiz-Tagle, César Antonio Salazar Espinoza, Kanishka Kacker, Nikita Sangwan, and Marcela Jaime.
Funded by: International Growth Center (IGC).
