Browsing by Author "Binyam, Mekasha Yemane"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Correlates of Early Childhood Health in Ethiopia: Application of Structural Equation Modeling with Latent Variables
    (A.A.U, 2009-07) Binyam, Mekasha Yemane; Professor Tassew, Woldehana
    Child health stat liS is an important determinant of adult productivities and earnings; thus it represents an important channel of intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. It is also recognized that health is a variable inherently unobservable and if observed has many measurement errors. This thesis used the special case of structural equation lIIodels with latent variables known as the Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) to investigate the determinants of child health and avoid the problem of health unobservability by using three indicators. The source of the data is the Young Lives Project 's household survey. The novelty of the empirical analysis is the simultaneous estimation of equations for both permanent and transitory health using cross-sectional designs. The results of this paper show that parental education, household size, safe drinking water source of the household, household overall economic status and vaccination availability are among the important determinants of both permanent and transitOfY child health. The study also showed that Ihere is strong correlation between transilolY and permanent child heallh in that a good permanent health state determines the transitory health state significantly. The study finally concluded that any policy measure tOlVards improving the health status of children has to take in to account the above mentioned factors as target variables.