The health and socioeconomic costs of exposure to soil pollution: evidence from three polluted mining and industrial sites in Europe

This article aims at providing a better understanding of the health and socioeconomic costs induced by soil pollution exposure. We conduct quantitative surveys in households living near mining and/or industrial sites in France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as those located in cleaner neighboring areas. We employ a complementary estimation approach based on ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and propensity score matching. Our results confirm significant life-long health risks for residents of polluted areas compared to those in control areas. We find lower birth weight and lower childhood health status, as well as a higher risk of chronic disease in adulthood and higher premature mortality. Regarding the socioeconomic costs, we find higher rates of school absenteeism and health service demand among residents from polluted areas compared to control areas. Furthermore, we observe heterogeneous effects according to sociodemographic characteristics. As expected, children and the elderly are the most sensitive age groups; in addition, materially deprived and uneducated households are particularly vulnerable to pollution. More surprisingly, there is some evidence of higher vulnerability of educated households with regard to birth outcomes. Our results have important implications for public policy: they allow alerting about actually observed health risks in the exposed areas, but they also call for designing awareness campaigns and remedial strategies that are targeted towards the most vulnerable.