Researchers from University of Maryland, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) located in New Delhi plan to expand coverage of environmental issues in a survey on maternal and child health, recently funded by NICHD and now in the planning stages. The NICHD funded project plans to collect a second wave of an all-India panel study originally fielded in 1994 by NCAER. These panel surveys will be publicly available to Indian as well as international scholars and will become a premier data source for studying health, fertility and family planning, school enrollment, labor force behavior, family demography and aging. Cultural, social and economic variation in India, captured during a period of rapid social change, will allow scholars to test a variety of theories. The present application will add an environmental assessment to this survey for at least for geographically diverse states. The goal of the present application are to: 1. Develop, test, and refine a set of research methods to measure important environmental variables that can be added in a cost effective way to lareger surveys. 2. Examine the impact of poverty, social inequalities, gender and public policy on environmental risks, particularly exposure to indoor air pollution and water borne diseases in India. 3. Build institutional linkages between premiere scholars in the field of environmental studies, economics, sociology and public health in India and the United States.
