Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #108988

Rathavuth Hong, DrPH and Vinod Mishra, PhD, MPH. Demographic and Health Research Division, ORC Macro, 11785 Beltsville Drive, Calverton, MD 20705, 301-572-0414, rathavuth.hong@orcmacro.com

The problems of food insecurity and undernutrition remain particularly severe in countries recovering from recent wars or civil unrest, where improvements in economic conditions have tended to benefit the advantaged groups and resulted in widespread disparities in health and nutrition. Using information on 3,235 children age 0–59 months included in the 2000 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey, this study examined how economic disparity is associated with disparity in childhood undernutrition. A child was defined as undernourished (stunted) if it's height-for-age was more than two standard deviations below the reference median. Household wealth status was measured by an index based on household ownership of durable assets. Binary and multinomial logistic regressions were used to estimate the effects of household wealth status on moderate and severe stunting. Results indicate that children in the poorest 20% households are more than twice as likely to suffer from stunting as children in the richest 20% households (OR=2.54; 95% CI: 1.91, 3.39). Adjusting for child's age, sex, birth order, duration of breastfeeding; mother's age at childbirth, BMI, education; and household access to safe drinking water, hygienic toilet facility, urban/rural residence, and geographic region, makes little difference to this effect (OR=2.05; 95% CI: 1.28, 3.28). The adjusted effect of wealth status is somewhat stronger on severe stunting (RRR=2.26) than on moderate stunting (RRR=1.89). The study concludes that wealth disparity is strongly associated with disparity in childhood nutritional status and emphasizes that poverty alleviation will be key to improving health and nutritional status of children in Cambodia.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize that there is wide and growing economic disparity in countries recovering from recent civil unrest.
• Identify that economic disparity is a key predictor of childhood nutritional status.

Keywords: Health Disparities, Nutrition

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.