Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Feb;19(2):209-26.
doi: 10.1002/hec.1469.

Selection and the effect of prenatal smoking

Angela R Fertig  1
Affiliations

Selection and the effect of prenatal smoking

Angela R Fertig. Health Econ. 2010 Feb.

Abstract

There is a debate about the extent to which the effect of prenatal smoking on infant health outcomes is causal. Poor outcomes could be attributable to mother characteristics, which are correlated with smoking. I examine the importance of selection on the effect of prenatal smoking by using three British cohorts where the mothers' knowledge about the harms of prenatal smoking varied substantially. I find that the effect of smoking on the probability of a low birth weight birth conditional on gestation is slightly more than twice as large in 2000 compared with 1958, implying that selection could explain as much as 50% of the current association between smoking and birth outcomes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest which might bias this research do not exist. This manuscript is original unpublished work and is not currently under review at any other journal. This research involves secondary data analysis and thus did not require any human subjects approval or ethical review.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Prenatal Smoking by Cohort and Mother’s Age
Figure 2
Figure 2. Prenatal Smoking by Cohort and Mother’s Education
Note: The bars display the distribution of mothers across the categories and correspond to the left axis. The lines show the percent who smoked by category and correspond to the right axis.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Prenatal Smoking by Cohort and Father’s Social Class
Figure 4
Figure 4. Prenatal Smoking by Cohort and Mother’s Social Class
Note: The bars display the distribution of mothers across the categories and correspond to the left axis. The lines show the percent who smoked by category and correspond to the right axis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abrevaya J. Estimating the effect of smoking on birth outcomes using a matched panel data approach. Journal of Applied Econometrics. 2006;21:489–519.
    1. Adda J, Cornaglia F. Prices, cigarette consumption, and smoking intensity. 2004. Jun, (unpublished manuscript last downloaded from http://eswc2005.econ.ucl.ac.uk/papers/ESWC/2005/2717/intensity.pdf on November 3, 2008) - PubMed
    1. Adda J, Cornaglia F. Taxes, cigarette consumption, and smoking intensity. American Economic Review. 2006;96(4):1013–1028. - PubMed
    1. Adler I. Primary malignant growths of the lung and bronchi. London: Longmans, Green and Company; 1912.
    1. Almond D, Chay KY, Lee DS. The costs of low birth weight. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2005;120(3):1031–1083.

Publication types