Intra-household health effects of irrigation in Southern Ghana*

This article targets the empirical space of well-defined theoretical and conceptual frameworks connecting irrigation to health outcomes but with limited evidence affected by observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Using a doubly robust estimator and panel data in Southern Ghana, the study finds that irrigation has mixed effects on health outcomes. The results show that there is no statistically significant increase in household and individual illness incidence, while that of malaria prevalence increases marginally for all individuals and substantially for children under 5 years. In contrast, the study finds a statistically significant increase in health status as very healthy of all individuals, females and males. The analyses of the pathways show that there is a decrease in per capita bednets and self-medication, while there are large improvements in health care financing and environmental quality. The overall findings suggest the possibility of irrigation leading to improvements in wellbeing, but this may come at the expense of increasing short-term health challenges.