Child malnutrition in Sub-saharan Africa: An assessment of the trend across socio-economic groups

Child malnutrition is high on the international health agenda. Undernutrition contributes to a large number of deaths of children under five, while limiting socio-economic development of countries and their potential to reduce poverty in the long term. This is particularly relevant in Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the poorest regions in the world.

Using the new WHO Child Growth standards, this paper analyzes Demographic and Health Survey data from 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with two or more datapoints since the 1990s, to examine trends in two anthropometric measures of child undernutrition – underweight and stunting. To better understand patterns of inequity, this paper examines changes in undernutrition across economic groups over time in these countries using. With increasing discussion of a nutrition transition in developing countries, we also examine trends in child overweight by socio-economic status. Multivariate regressions assess the adjusted effect of household wealth on child malnutrition over time. While other studies have examined nutrition trends in individual countries, none have consistently analyzed nutrition trends especially focusing on wealth inequity.

Although Africa is not on target to meet the MDG1 target (halving by 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, particularly focusing on children underweight), this cross-national analysis is necessary to inform policy on the nutrition situation of specific disadvantaged groups over time and to improve targeting of nutrition interventions designed to meet the MDG1 goals. The analysis also builds on the literature regarding obesity in developing countries, where nutrition-related non-communicable diseases are on the rise.