A new University of Arizona-led study finds that PFAS contamination in drinking water harms infant health and carries at least $8 billion a year in U.S. economic costs. The work strengthens the case for stricter regulation and cleanup of these “forever chemicals.”
Contamination from so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water is not only harming babies’ health, it is also costing the United States billions of dollars each year, according to new research led by the University of Arizona.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimates that exposure to certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water is linked to at least $8 billion a year in social and economic losses for babies born in the contiguous United States.
Those losses include medical costs, long-term health impacts and reduced lifetime earnings tied to worse birth outcomes.
PFAS are a large family of human-made chemicals used for decades to make products resist heat, oil and water. They are found in items such as nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics and firefighting foams. They are often called “forever chemicals” because they break down very slowly in the environment and can persist in soil and water for many years.
Scientists have long suspected that PFAS exposure during pregnancy can harm infants, leading to low birth weight, preterm birth or even infant death. But it has been difficult to study those effects in a way that mimics random exposure in the real world, rather than simply comparing more exposed and less exposed communities that might differ in many other ways.
The Arizona-led team tackled that challenge by focusing on all births in New Hampshire from 2010 to 2019 and taking advantage of how groundwater flows.
The researchers compared mothers who relied on private wells located “downstream” of known PFAS-contaminated sites, in groundwater terms, with similar mothers whose wells were “upstream” of those sites. Because the two groups lived in comparable areas but received water from different parts of the aquifer, the design allowed the team to isolate the impact of PFAS in drinking water more clearly than many earlier studies.
They found that mothers whose water came from wells affected by PFAS contamination had higher first-year infant mortality, more preterm births — including more births before 28 weeks of pregnancy — and more babies born with low birth weight, defined as less than 5.5 pounds. The study also detected increases in extremely low birth weights, under 2.2 pounds.
“We found really substantial impacts on infant health, which expanded on what others before us had found,” co-author Ashley Langer, an economics professor in the U of A Eller College of Management, said in a news release.
The team then translated those health impacts into dollars, drawing on existing research that tracks how early-life health shapes education, earnings and medical needs over a lifetime.
“What we then do is calculate how these negative birth outcomes follow these children throughout their lives. The numbers we found represent the lowest end of the economic impact – we suspect it is even more,” Langer added.
Extrapolating from New Hampshire to the rest of the contiguous United States, the researchers estimated that PFAS contamination in drinking water imposes at least $8 billion in costs on each year’s cohort of newborns.
That figure, the authors argue, should be part of the national conversation about how aggressively to regulate and clean up PFAS.
“If we compare costs we’re finding versus the cost of cleaning up PFAS, the answers are obvious,” added co-author Derek Lemoine, an economics professor and director of graduate studies in the Eller College. “Removing PFAS from drinking water not only results in drastically improved health outcomes. It also produces a significant long-term economic benefit.”
The study focused on two “long-chain” PFAS compounds, PFOA and PFOS. These chemicals are no longer manufactured in the United States, but they remain in soils and continue to seep into groundwater.
Bo Guo, an associate professor in the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, contributed expertise on how PFAS move through soil and aquifers.
“Whatever PFAS we see in groundwater is only a tiny fraction of the PFAS that has been dumped in the environment,” Guo said in the news release. “The majority of PFAS is still in the soil and migrating downward.”
That slow migration means that, without intervention, contamination can continue to worsen over time as more PFAS reach drinking water sources.
The project itself grew out of an effort by the Arizona Institute for Resilience to spark collaborations across disciplines. Lemoine and Langer, both economists, teamed up with Guo after learning about his years of work on PFAS contamination.
Eller economics alumnus Robert Baluja and former Arizona Institute for Resilience-funded postdoctoral researcher Wesley Howden also contributed to the study.
Beyond quantifying current harms, the authors highlight several questions for future research, including how newer PFAS compounds — often used as replacements for PFOA and PFOS — affect health, and how long-term, low-level exposure shapes outcomes over many years.
In the meantime, the study points to practical steps that can reduce risk, especially for pregnant people in areas with known or suspected PFAS contamination.
The researchers note that activated carbon filters, whether installed by water utilities or used in homes, can remove these long-chain PFAS from drinking water.
“These chemicals may be everywhere, but we still find that drinking water matters for pregnant women. Installing and maintaining home water filters could be prudent for them,” Lemoine added.
Public health experts say the new findings add urgency to ongoing efforts by regulators and communities to map PFAS contamination, upgrade water treatment systems and hold polluters accountable. As policymakers weigh the costs of stricter standards and cleanup, the Arizona team’s work suggests that the price of inaction is already being paid — by the country’s youngest and most vulnerable residents, and by the economy as a whole.
Source: University of Arizona