Bobonis, Gustavo J., Edward Miguel, and Charu Puri-Sharma. 2006. “Anemia and School Participation.” Journal of Human Resources 41(4): 692–721.
Anemia is among the most widespread health problems for children in developing countries. This paper evaluates the impact of a randomized health intervention delivering iron supplementation and deworming drugs to Indian preschool children. At baseline, 69 percent were anemic and 30 percent had intestinal worm infections. Weight increased among assisted children, and preschool-participation rates rose by 5.8 percentage points, reducing absenteeism by one-fifth. Gains were especially pronounced for those most likely to be anemic at baseline. Results contribute to a growing view that schoolbased health programs are an effective way of promoting school attendance in less developed countries.
Gustavo J. Bobonis is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto. Edward Miguel is an associate professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and an NBER faculty research fellow. Charu Puri-Sharma is a Director for the Niramaya Health Foundation. The authors wish to thank Harold Alderman, Simon Brooker, Rick Hanushek, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Matthew Jukes, David Lee, Steven Levitt, Michael Kremer, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments, and Rukmini Banerji, Janaki Desai, Namita Gupta, Radhika Iyengar, Shruti Nag, Vishal Seghal, Monica Singhal, and the Pratham Education Initiative and Niramaya Health Foundation field staff and management, for their generous support throughout. The authors are grateful to ICICI Bank for funding. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0418110, awarded to Edward Miguel. Miguel acknowledges funding from the World Bank and the University of California, Berkeley Center for Health Research, Committee on Research, and Hellman Fund. The authors claim responsibility for all errors. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning March 2007 through February 2010 from Gustavo J. Bobonis <gustavo.bobonis@utoronto.ca>.