Armed conflict, household victimization, and child health in Côte d'Ivoire ☆

We examine the causal impact of the 2002–2007 civil conflict in Cote d'Ivoire on children's health using household surveys collected before, during, and after the conflict, and information on the exact location and date of conflict events. Our identification strategy relies on exploiting both temporal and spatial variation across birth cohorts to measure children's exposure to the conflict. We find that children from regions more affected by the conflict suffered significant health setbacks compared with children from less affected regions. We further examine possible war impact mechanisms using rich survey data on households' experience of war. Our results suggest that conflict-related household victimization, and in particular economic losses, is an important channel through which armed conflict negatively impacts child health.