Arsenic mitigation in Bangladesh: A household labor market approach

Rural families in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, face financial risks from major illness both from the cost of medical care and from the loss of income associated with reduced labor supply and productivity. Chronic exposure to arsenic in drinking water has often been associated with the development of skin cancers and internal cancers, especially of the bladder, liver, and lungs, and a wide variety of other health conditions, such as diabetes, respiratory problems, cardiovascular diseases, hyperpigmentation, hypopigmentation, and keratosis, a condition in which painful nodules grow on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. Most of the economic work on arsenic contamination in Bangladesh has had an epidemiological focus that has tried to effectively monetize a dose response relation using either a cost of illness or a willingness to pay approach