Thanks for this Jack! Sounds like an interesting area to look into.
I am curious about the literature suggesting that lead paint causes negative health / psychological effects. After an admittedly cursory glance, many of the studies you cite seem to indicate an association between lead exposure and some negative outcome, but don’t necessarily imply a causal link from lead exposure to these negative outcomes. This is important: if the correlation is actually due to some other factor (e.g. living in worse conditions more generally), then we may overestimate how bad lead exposure is, and end up misdirecting funds.
Can you point us towards the best causal studies on lead exposure? E.g. ones that evaluate an RCT reducing lead exposure, or some other kind of “natural experiment”? (Apologies if you’ve referred to it and I just missed something)
Thanks for this Jack! Sounds like an interesting area to look into.
I am curious about the literature suggesting that lead paint causes negative health / psychological effects. After an admittedly cursory glance, many of the studies you cite seem to indicate an association between lead exposure and some negative outcome, but don’t necessarily imply a causal link from lead exposure to these negative outcomes. This is important: if the correlation is actually due to some other factor (e.g. living in worse conditions more generally), then we may overestimate how bad lead exposure is, and end up misdirecting funds.
Can you point us towards the best causal studies on lead exposure? E.g. ones that evaluate an RCT reducing lead exposure, or some other kind of “natural experiment”? (Apologies if you’ve referred to it and I just missed something)
Hi, thanks for the comment! Yes, most of the studies are longitudinal cohort studies. I think this is one of the best examples of a well-designed interventional study: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20160056