The impact of a malaria elimination initiative on school outcomes: Evidence from Southern Mozambique
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- dc.contributor.author Cirera, Laia
- dc.contributor.author Vall-Castelló, Judit
- dc.contributor.author Brew, Joe
- dc.contributor.author Saúte, Francisco
- dc.contributor.author Sicuri, Elisa
- dc.date.accessioned 2022-05-03T05:51:36Z
- dc.date.available 2022-05-03T05:51:36Z
- dc.date.issued 2022
- dc.description.abstract Despite the significant improvements achieved over the last ten years, primary education attainment in Mozambique is still low. Potential reasons acting from the demand perspective include ill health, among other factors. In Mozambique, ill health is still largely linked to malaria, which is a leading cause of outpatient contacts, hospital admissions and death, particularly among under-five and school-aged children. Despite this, in Mozambique and more generally, in malaria endemic countries, the identification and measurement of how improved malaria indicators may contribute to better school outcomes remains largely unknown. In particular, there is a low understanding of the extent to which better health translates immediately into school indicators, such as absenteeism and grades. In this study, we exploit the first year of a malaria elimination initiative implemented in Magude district (Southern Mozambique) that started in 2015, as a quasi-experiment to estimate the impact of malaria on selected primary school outcomes. While malaria was not eliminated, its incidence drastically dropped. We use as control a neighbouring district (Manhiça) with similar socio-economic and epidemiological characteristics. By employing a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach, we examine whether the positive health shock translated into improved school outcomes. Using information from school registers, we generated a dataset on school attendance and grades for 9,848 primary-school students from 9 schools (4 in the treated district and 5 in the control district). In our main specification, a repeated cross-section analysis, we find that the elimination initiative led to a 28% decrease in school absenteeism and a 2% increase in students' grades. Our results are robust across different specifications, including a panel DiD individual fixed effects estimate on a sub-sample of students. These findings provide evidence on the negative impact of malaria on primary education attainment and suggest remarkable economic benefits consequent to its elimination.
- dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
- dc.identifier.citation Cirera L, Castelló JV, Brew J, Saúte F, Sicuri E. The impact of a malaria elimination initiative on school outcomes: Evidence from Southern Mozambique. Econ Hum Biol. 2022 Jan;44:101100. DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2021.101100
- dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2021.101100
- dc.identifier.issn 1570-677X
- dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/52958
- dc.language.iso eng
- dc.publisher Elsevier
- dc.relation.ispartof Econ Hum Biol. 2022 Jan;44:101100
- dc.rights © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
- dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- dc.subject.keyword Difference-in-differences
- dc.subject.keyword Human capital
- dc.subject.keyword Malaria
- dc.subject.keyword Mozambique
- dc.subject.keyword Primary education
- dc.title The impact of a malaria elimination initiative on school outcomes: Evidence from Southern Mozambique
- dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
- dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion