Regional Variation in Childhood Malnutrition Associated with Staple Food Consumption: Evidence from Uganda
Poster Number
15A
Format
Poster Presentation
Faculty Mentor Name
William Herrin
Faculty Mentor Department
Economics
Additional Faculty Mentor Name
Michelle Amaral
Additional Faculty Mentor Department
Economics
Abstract/Artist Statement
This work follows from Amaral et al. (2017), who use three waves of the Uganda Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) to demonstrate that consuming rather large amounts of nutritionally deficient staple foods is associated with stunting and, to a lesser extent, wasting in young Ugandan children. Moreover, this lack of dietary diversity has a larger effect than food insecurity, defined as not having enough food, on malnutrition. Recognizing regional differences in staple food consumption patterns due to ethnic, cultural, and climatic differences, this work tests if the relationship between staple food consumption and childhood stunting varies regionally. Adding a fourth wave of LSMS data and using the Amaral et al. model, which estimates the odds of stunting with logistic regression, preliminary results suggest that regional differences exist, and that these differences may be driven by a few specific staple foods. Also, adding the additional year of data shows that food insecurity has grown to be more important in Uganda. Finally, mapping different staple food consumption patterns to different regions is imprecise; the lack of robustness in some of the preliminary estimates across different model specifications confirms this. Consequently, a broad array of different specifications is required to convey the regional differences of stunting in young Ugandan children.
Location
DeRosa University Center Ballroom
Start Date
27-4-2018 10:00 AM
End Date
27-4-2018 12:00 PM
Regional Variation in Childhood Malnutrition Associated with Staple Food Consumption: Evidence from Uganda
DeRosa University Center Ballroom
This work follows from Amaral et al. (2017), who use three waves of the Uganda Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) to demonstrate that consuming rather large amounts of nutritionally deficient staple foods is associated with stunting and, to a lesser extent, wasting in young Ugandan children. Moreover, this lack of dietary diversity has a larger effect than food insecurity, defined as not having enough food, on malnutrition. Recognizing regional differences in staple food consumption patterns due to ethnic, cultural, and climatic differences, this work tests if the relationship between staple food consumption and childhood stunting varies regionally. Adding a fourth wave of LSMS data and using the Amaral et al. model, which estimates the odds of stunting with logistic regression, preliminary results suggest that regional differences exist, and that these differences may be driven by a few specific staple foods. Also, adding the additional year of data shows that food insecurity has grown to be more important in Uganda. Finally, mapping different staple food consumption patterns to different regions is imprecise; the lack of robustness in some of the preliminary estimates across different model specifications confirms this. Consequently, a broad array of different specifications is required to convey the regional differences of stunting in young Ugandan children.