Child nutritional status in poor Ethiopian households: the role of gender, assets and location

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dc.date.accessioned 2006-02-02 en
dc.date.accessioned 2023-06-22T10:02:18Z
dc.date.available 2023-06-22T10:02:18Z
dc.date.issued 2015-08-25 en
dc.identifier.isbn 1904427278 en
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/7000
dc.description.abstract As one of the poorest countries in the world, Ethiopia's rate of child malnutrition is one of the highest, even within sub-Saharan Africa. The causes and relative importance of various determinants of malnutrition in Ethiopia are not well understood. This paper specifically explores some of the less obvious factors affecting children's nutritional status in Ethiopia. It is based on information collected in 2002 from 1001 households with eight-year-old children mainly from food insecure communities in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Addis Ababa Regional States. As part of the Young Lives Project, this study is particularly important because the determinants of the nutritional status of eight-year-old children is much less researched than that of younger children, not only in Ethiopia but in other developing countries. The results from simple correlation analysis indicated that a number of variables were significantly related to weight-for-height z-score (WHZ) (as an indicator of wasting). In addition to analysing WHZ for the whole sample, we have also separately analysed WHZ for urban and rural households, and found that the determinants differed. The results show that weight-for-height z-scores depend on the sex of the child and suggest that short term malnutrition is higher for male children than for female children. We conclude that variables such as physical and natural capital (wealth index, ownership of radio, television and land), human capital (education of members of the household), social capital (strength of a caregiver's ties to social organisations and networks), age-sex composition of households (the number of girls, the number of female adults) and location of residence (rural or urban) are important in influencing WHZ in eight-year-olds. We conclude that addressing child malnutrition, especially WHZ, requires a multi-dimensional approach that takes into account food security, public health and gendered intra-household dynamics if it is to be effective. Moreover, a cross-sectoral nutrition policy is needed to improve policy synergies. en
dc.format.medium Print en
dc.publisher Young Lives, Save the Children UK en
dc.relation.ispartofseries Working paper No. 26 en
dc.subject ETHIOPIA en
dc.subject CHILD HEALTH en
dc.subject FOOD AND NUTRITION en
dc.title Child nutritional status in poor Ethiopian households: the role of gender, assets and location en
dc.type Monograph (Book) en
dc.ProjectNumber N/A en
dc.BudgetYear 2005/06 en
dc.ResearchGroup Centre for Service Delivery en
dc.PlaceOfPublication London en
dc.ArchiveNumber 3608 en
dc.outputnumber 2160 en
dc.bibliographictitle Mekonnen, A., Tefera, B., Woldehanna, T., Jones, N., Seager, J., Alemu, T. & Asgedom, G. (2005) Child nutritional status in poor Ethiopian households: the role of gender, assets and location. (Working paper No. 26). London: Young Lives, Save the Children UK. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/7000 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/7000 en
dc.publicationyear 2005 en
dc.contributor.author1 Mekonnen, A. en
dc.contributor.author2 Tefera, B. en
dc.contributor.author3 Woldehanna, T. en
dc.contributor.author4 Jones, N. en
dc.contributor.author5 Seager, J. en
dc.contributor.author6 Alemu, T. en
dc.contributor.author7 Asgedom, G. en


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