Understanding the Effects of Wildfire Smoke Exposure on Student Test Performance in the US

Abstract:

Wildfires have increased in frequency and severity over the past two decades, especially in the Western United States. Although previous literature has focused on the physical and health damages that stem from these wildfire events, the effects on human cognition have been less studied. This is important given recent research linking increases in environmental exposures such as temperature and air pollution to negative impacts on student test performance, which can have long-term consequences on educational attainment opportunities and earning potential. Here we investigate the effect of wildfire smoke exposure on test outcomes. Impacts are estimated using a quasi-experimental approach that exploits variation in the spatial and temporal distribution of smoke and student test scores across the US. We combine standardized test score data from 2009-2016 for ~11,800 school districts across 6 grades with satellite-derived estimates of smoke exposure. We find that, relative to an average smoke year, a 1 standard deviation increase in the number of days with smoke (~4-5 days) is associated with decreases in student test scores of 0.4% and 0.5% of a standard deviation for English language arts and Math respectively. The results are robust to a range of specifications and controls and the observed magnitude is in line with previous studies investigating the effects of total air pollution from all sources on student performance. Our research provides evidence of previously underrecognized social costs of wildfire events and is important given the expected increase in wildfires due to climate change and the growth of development in wildland urban interface regions.