Weaknesses of child malnutrition as poverty indicator

Responsiveness to changes in each of the child malnutrition indexes are highly sensitive to age group. For example, in most developing countries, the prevalence of stunting in children increases up to the age 24 to 36 months and becomes less responsive to changes after that age. Stunting reflects the cumulative effects of under-nutrition and infections since birth and even before birth and because stunting typically persists over the years and thus reflect the general poor growth environment.

Underweight reflects both the cumulative effects and current effect of malnutrition and therefore, at any one time, is not easy to interpret. Available data may be site-specific, and lack a time series perspective. In some countries, the age of children is difficult to determine. The accurate age of children from poor households are difficult to collect, in particular for children under two years old when age should be reported in unit of months, not years. It is also difficult to measure the height of children under two with accuracy and consistency. In an ideal child malnutrition data collection system, anthropomorphic measurement of children should be collected at community health service centers, where equipments i.e. scale, measurement tape, etc are available and should be done by staff with a certain level of training. If collected during the survey, additional training (about 0.5 days) will be required for a survey enumerator. Equipment may also need to be brought along during the survey, which may not be practical.

While the relationship between income and child malnutrition is strong for a low income population (i.e. GNP per capita below $900), a study shows that beyond $900, the effect of increasing incomes on nutrition diminishes (UN-ACC/SCN, 1992). However, this is not a serious weakness as the low income population is often the target of development interventions.

Government commitment to data collection, including allocation of sufficient human and financial resources, is lacking in many countries. Availability of data on child malnutrition at a national scale is currently not universally available from all governments. IFPRI reported that out of 179 countries reviewed, nationally representative child underweight data are available in 63 countries(Smith and Haddad, 2000). In assessing the feasibility of child malnutrition as a poverty indicator in ADB agriculture and rural development projects, it was found that among developing member countries of the Asian Development Bank, data are routinely collected and made available only in 12 countries namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, People’s Republic of China , Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. Therefore, while comparison across geographical areas within these countries is possible, comparison across the globe is still not possible. Nevertheless, with the growing awareness of importance of health as foundation for sustainable development, it is expected that there will be a gradual increase of governments around the globe collecting the information routinely.

Download this Discussion Paper [ PDF 243.5KB| 22 pages ].

Post a Comment

We welcome your feedback on this publication. Post a comment. ADBI is not obliged to acknowledge or publish comments and may abridge or edit them before web posting.

Comment(s)

There are [2] comment(s) for this entry. Post a comment.

1. naveen
   (posted 17 December 2008 / 08:35:28 PM)
   
   This information explain clearly about the malnutrition and poverty,
   Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness.
   
   Poor children are the most prone to this and are often the victims to malnutrition, deficiencies, diseases and ultimately deaths caused by hunger.
   
   Today our world is home to 6.6 billion people. The United States is a part of the high-income group of nations which has a population of around 30 crores
2. ms.gilor araneta -tino
   (posted 02 April 2008 / 05:39:12 AM)
   
   Conditions tagged as underweight or underheight has been a problem for a longtime. If we dig further poverty is one cause. I am glad that the schools here in the Province of Albay are recipients of the Food for the School program. In its simple way, this is a BIG solution, RICE ON THE TABLE of every family. I'mm sure that this will help increase the nutritional status of our schoolchildren.