Small Area Estimation of Child Malnutrition in Ethiopian Woredas
Reducing child undernutrition is a key social policy objective of the Ethiopian government. Despite substantial reduction over the past decade and a half, child undernutrition is still high. With 48 percent of children stunted, underweight, or wasted, undernutrition remains an important child he...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/02/25994085/small-area-estimation-child-malnutrition-ethiopian-woredas http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23924 |
| Summary: | Reducing child undernutrition is a key social policy objective
of the Ethiopian government. Despite substantial reduction
over the past decade and a half, child undernutrition is still
high. With 48 percent of children stunted, underweight, or
wasted, undernutrition remains an important child health
challenge. The existing literature highlights that the targeting
of efforts to reduce undernutrition in Ethiopia is
inefficient, in part because of the lack of data and updated
information. This paper remedies some of this shortfall
by estimating levels of stunting and underweight in each
woreda for 2014. The estimates are small area estimations
based on the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey and
the latest population census. It is shown that small area
estimations are powerful predictors of undernutrition, even
controlling for household characteristics, such as wealth and
education, and hence a valuable targeting metric. The results
show large variations in share of children undernourished
in each region, more than between regions. The results also
show that the locations with larger challenges depend on the
chosen undernutrition statistic, as the share, number, and
concentration of undernourished children point to vastly
different locations. There is limited correlation between the
shares of children underweight and stunted across woredas,
indicating that different locations face different challenges. |
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