Deforestation, Malaria and Infant Mortality in Indonesia

Abstract

Factors expected to change concurrently with forest loss—such as income and air pollution— shape human health in different ways, making it difficult to ex ante predict the net impact of deforestation. This paper investigates the infant mortality effects of prenatal exposure to high biomass forest loss in Indonesia, a country that has rich forest reserves that are being subjected to high levels of deforestation. The analysis uses a fixed effects approach on district-level panel data, essentially tracking how mortality responds to forest cover changes over time within districts. Results suggest that forest loss favors survival among all infants. However, there is variation in the forest loss-infant mortality relationship by gravidity or pregnancy order—while children born from women’s higher order pregnancies are less likely to die when exposed to deforestation, children born from first pregnancies experience an increase in their risk of death. Potential mechanisms such as air pollution, economic activity and perinatal health care do not appear to explain the gravidity-specific effects of deforestation. However, the observed pattern of results suggests that effects are being channeled through malaria—the disease, which is likely to increase with forest loss, tends to disproportionately infect women during their first pregnancy, thus causing greater harm to the children born from these pregnancies.