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Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy

OBJECTIVES: Globalisation and industrialisation can increase economic opportunity for low/middle-income nations, but these processes may also increase industrial accidents and harm workers. This paper examines the long-term, cohort-based health effects of the Bhopal gas disaster (BGD), one of the mo...

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Autores principales: McCord, Gordon C, Bharadwaj, Prashant, McDougal, Lotus, Kaushik, Arushi, Raj, Anita
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10335451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37311631
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-066733
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author McCord, Gordon C
Bharadwaj, Prashant
McDougal, Lotus
Kaushik, Arushi
Raj, Anita
author_facet McCord, Gordon C
Bharadwaj, Prashant
McDougal, Lotus
Kaushik, Arushi
Raj, Anita
author_sort McCord, Gordon C
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Globalisation and industrialisation can increase economic opportunity for low/middle-income nations, but these processes may also increase industrial accidents and harm workers. This paper examines the long-term, cohort-based health effects of the Bhopal gas disaster (BGD), one of the most serious industrial accidents in history. DESIGN: This retrospective analysis uses geolocated data on health and education from India’s National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) and the 1999 Indian Socio-Economic Survey by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO-1999) to examine the health effects of exposure to the BGD among men and women aged 15–49 years living in Madhya Pradesh in 2015–2016 (women n=40 786; men n=7031 (NFHS-4) and n=13 369 (NSSO-1999)), as well as their children (n=1260). A spatial difference-in-differences strategy estimated the relative effect of being in utero near Bhopal relative to other cohorts and to those further from Bhopal separately for each dataset. RESULTS: We document long-term, intergenerational impacts of the BGD, showing that men who were in utero at the time were more likely to have a disability that affected their employment 15 years later, and had higher rates of cancer and lower educational attainment over 30 years later. Changes in the sex ratio among children born in 1985 suggest an effect of the BGD up to 100 km from the accident. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate social costs stemming from the BGD that extend far beyond the mortality and morbidity experienced in the immediate aftermath. Quantifying these multigenerational impacts is important for policy consideration. Moreover, our results suggest that the BGD affected people across a substantially more widespread area than has previously been demonstrated.
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spelling pubmed-103354512023-07-12 Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy McCord, Gordon C Bharadwaj, Prashant McDougal, Lotus Kaushik, Arushi Raj, Anita BMJ Open Public Health OBJECTIVES: Globalisation and industrialisation can increase economic opportunity for low/middle-income nations, but these processes may also increase industrial accidents and harm workers. This paper examines the long-term, cohort-based health effects of the Bhopal gas disaster (BGD), one of the most serious industrial accidents in history. DESIGN: This retrospective analysis uses geolocated data on health and education from India’s National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) and the 1999 Indian Socio-Economic Survey by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO-1999) to examine the health effects of exposure to the BGD among men and women aged 15–49 years living in Madhya Pradesh in 2015–2016 (women n=40 786; men n=7031 (NFHS-4) and n=13 369 (NSSO-1999)), as well as their children (n=1260). A spatial difference-in-differences strategy estimated the relative effect of being in utero near Bhopal relative to other cohorts and to those further from Bhopal separately for each dataset. RESULTS: We document long-term, intergenerational impacts of the BGD, showing that men who were in utero at the time were more likely to have a disability that affected their employment 15 years later, and had higher rates of cancer and lower educational attainment over 30 years later. Changes in the sex ratio among children born in 1985 suggest an effect of the BGD up to 100 km from the accident. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate social costs stemming from the BGD that extend far beyond the mortality and morbidity experienced in the immediate aftermath. Quantifying these multigenerational impacts is important for policy consideration. Moreover, our results suggest that the BGD affected people across a substantially more widespread area than has previously been demonstrated. BMJ Publishing Group 2023-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10335451/ /pubmed/37311631 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-066733 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Public Health
McCord, Gordon C
Bharadwaj, Prashant
McDougal, Lotus
Kaushik, Arushi
Raj, Anita
Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy
title Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy
title_full Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy
title_fullStr Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy
title_full_unstemmed Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy
title_short Long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the Bhopal gas tragedy
title_sort long-term health and human capital effects of in utero exposure to an industrial disaster: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis of the bhopal gas tragedy
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10335451/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37311631
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-066733
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