Food Inflation and Child Health
Malnutrition is one of the most important early life shocks that have lasting effects on health. An often-neglected cause of malnutrition and hidden hunger is high food inflation, particularly in developing countries. This study uses the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey data, matching each child’s early life age in months from the time of conception with the corresponding local monthly food price data to examine the medium-term and long-term impacts of exposure to food inflation during the critical early life window, pregnancy and infancy, on child health. Exposure to one percentage point higher month-to-month food inflation while in utero increases the risk of under-five stunting by 0.95 percent. The impacts are heterogeneous depending on the month of exposure, highlighting the complicated biological mechanisms through which malnutrition during early life affects human growth. The results are robust to various empirical specifications and potential biases arising from survivor sample selection and age misreporting.
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article biblioteca |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
2022-05-26
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| Subjects: | IN UTERO, HEIGHT, STUNTING, MACROECONOMIC INSTABILITY, MALNUTRITION, LOW-INCOME, AFRICA, |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099612012112329090/IDU08048f7e50dd3b046910bdbb00b28d7db83f0 https://hdl.handle.net/10986/41102 |
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| Summary: | Malnutrition is one of the most
important early life shocks that have lasting effects on
health. An often-neglected cause of malnutrition and hidden
hunger is high food inflation, particularly in developing
countries. This study uses the Ethiopian Demographic and
Health Survey data, matching each child’s early life age in
months from the time of conception with the corresponding
local monthly food price data to examine the medium-term and
long-term impacts of exposure to food inflation during the
critical early life window, pregnancy and infancy, on child
health. Exposure to one percentage point higher
month-to-month food inflation while in utero increases the
risk of under-five stunting by 0.95 percent. The impacts are
heterogeneous depending on the month of exposure,
highlighting the complicated biological mechanisms through
which malnutrition during early life affects human growth.
The results are robust to various empirical specifications
and potential biases arising from survivor sample selection
and age misreporting. |
|---|