The major goal of the analysis is to estimate the parameters of a child health production function. Child health is measured at birth as birth weight and gestational-age, and at each subsequent two-month interval as diarrhea, growth and mortality. A detailed behavioral model is specified. The parameters of the model relate the exogenous factors to health related behaviors (e.g., prenatal health care and infant feeding). In turn these intermediate behavioral and biological variables affect our outcomes from birth through 24 months of age. Dynamic estimation techniques will be used for this research. Using this model, it is possible to simulate the effect of any policy decision by introducing exogenous changes in the appropriate socioeconomic, behavioral, or biological variable(s) and determining the effects of the changes in the outcome variables of interest. The data set to be utilized is being collected from a randomly selected sample of over 3100 Filipino mother-infant pairs, currently being visited every two months through the first two years of the infants' lives. The data are being collected under separate funding, and come from a survey that was designed specifically for this project. The data set will be the most exhaustive ever collected for the purposes of analyzing infant health and survival determinants. It will contain complete dietary information as well as an exhaustive compilation of time-denoted individual and household health status, health-related behaviors, socioeconomic, cultural and environmental data, community price, and infrastructure data. The analysis will be done by a multidisciplinary (economics, statistics, environmental science, epidemiology, and demography) group which has worked together for several years on studies of topics related to this proposal.
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