Crick&Partners_Elisa_uploaded.pdf (1.48 MB)
The short-term impact of a malaria elimination project on school outcomes: evidence from Southern Mozambique
presentation
posted on 2019-09-17, 15:12 authored by Elisa Sicuri, laia cirera, Joe Brew, Ranjeeta Thomas, francisco saute, Judit VallWe exploit an ongoing
malaria elimination project implemented in Magude district (Southern
Mozambique) that started in 2015 as a quasi-experiment to estimate the impact
of malaria on school outcomes. We use as control a neighbouring district (Manhiça)
with similar socio-economic and epidemiological characteristics. Using a
difference-in-differences approach, we first show that malaria incidence
significantly dropped due to the intervention in the treated district. We then examine whether this positive health
shock had an impact on school achievement. Using previously unexplored school
registers, we generated a dataset on school attendance and grades for 9,848
primary-school students from 9 schools (4 in the intervention district and 5 in
the control district). We find that the elimination project led to a significant
increase in both school attendance and grades, by 28% and 2%, respectively. Our
results are robust across several specification checks. These findings provide solid
evidence on the negative impact of malaria on human capital accumulation and suggest
strong economic arguments for investing in its elimination.