Socio-economic Determinants of Severe and Moderate Stunting among Under-Five Children of Rural Bangladesh

Introduction: Malnutrition among under-five children is a chronic problem in developing countries. This study explores the socio-economic determinants of severe and moderate stunting among under-five children of rural Bangladesh. Methods: The study used data from the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Cross-sectional and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to assess the effect of the socio-demographic variables on moderate and severe stunting over normal among the children. Results: Findings revealed that over two-fifths of the children were stunted, of which 26.3% were moderately stunted and 15.1% were severely stunted. The multivariate multinomial logistic regression analysis yielded significantly increased risk of severe stunting (OR=2.53, 95% CI=1.34-4.79) and moderate stunting (OR=2.37, 95% CI=1.47-3.83) over normal among children with a thinner mother. Region, father’s education, toilet facilities, child’s age, birth order of children and wealth index were also important determinants of children’s nutritional status. Conclusion: Development and poverty alleviation programmes should focus on the disadvantaged rural segments of people to improve their nutritional status.

Socio-economic Correlates of Malnutrition among Married Women in Bangladesh

This paper examines the prevalence and socio-economic correlates of malnutrition among ever married non-pregnant women of reproductive age of Bangladesh using a nationally representative weighted sample of 10,145. Body mass index was used to measure nutritional status. Both bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses were employed to assess the relationship between socio-economic characteristics and women’s nutritional status. Overall, 28.5% of the women were found to be underweight. The fixed effect multivariate binary logistic regression analysis yielded significantly increased risk of underweight for the young, currently working, non-Muslim, rural residents, widowed, divorced or separated women. Significant wide variations of malnourishment prevailed in the administrative regions of the country. Wealth index and women’s education were the most important determinants of underweight. The multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the risk of being underweight was almost seven times higher (OR=6.76, 95% CI=5.20-8.80) among women with no formal education as compared to those with higher education and the likelihood of underweight was significantly (p<0.001) 5.2 times (OR=5.23, 95% CI=4.51-6.07) in the poorest as compared to their richest counterparts. Poverty alleviation programmes should be strengthened targeting the poor. Effective policies, information and health education programmes for women are required to ensure adequate access to health services and for them to understand the components of a healthy diet.

Effects of Wealth on Nutritional Status of Pre-school Children in Bangladesh

This paper explores the relationship between household wealth and nutritional status of pre-school children in Bangladesh using the nationally representative 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey data. Chronic malnutrition was measured by z-score of height-for-age and the effect of household wealth on adverse childhood growth rate was assessed by multivariate logistic regression analyses. Overall, 43% of the children were stunted. The multivariate binary logistic regression analysis yielded significantly increased risk of stunting among the poorest (OR=2.26, 95% CI=1.77-2.89) as compared to the richest. The multivariate multinomial logistic regression produced elevated risk of moderate stunting (OR=1.98, 95% CI=1.50-2.61) and severe stunting (OR=2.88, 95% CI=2.00-4.14) of children in the poorest category compared to their richest counterparts. Children’s age, duration of breastfeeding, mother’s education, body mass index, mother’s working status and place of region were also identified as important determinants of children’s nutritional status. The findings suggest that apart from poverty reduction, maternal education, and strengthening of child and maternal health care services are important to improve health and nutritional status of the children.