Determinants of the Nutrition and Health Status of Children in Rural Ethiopia: A Longitudinal Analysis
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Date
2006-07
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A.A.U
Abstract
This study tried to see the determinants of nutritional status of children using
longitudinal data from fifteen villages of rural Ethiopia. An attempt was also made to see
if there are any significant interactions between mother's education and community
characteristics. By employing random effects procedure, both height-for-age and weight for-
height z-scores were regressed on various private and public determinants
The results show that age of the child, parental height and primary education, existence of
permanent partner to the household head, household size and composition, and safe
water source of the household are an important determinants of child nutritional
outcomes. However, most of the interaction terms between mother's education and
community variables (such as access to healthcare and the communities' safe source of
water) failed to be significant implying partly the unimportance of these community
variables and partly the low level of maternal education in the sampled households. But
for the significant term in the WHZ regression (i.e the interaction between access to
health care and mother's attainment of at least a year of primary education but not
higher), one may argue that having at least a year of primary education is a substitute to
access to health care.
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Keywords
Children in Rural Ethiopia, Determinants of the Nutrition