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Reducing child malnutrition in Nigeria: Combined effects of income growth and provision of information about mothers' access to health care services

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  • Agee, Mark D.

Abstract

Using a sample of 1359 Nigerian households from the 2003 Demographic and Health Surveys, this article investigates the contribution of improved maternal information about access to community health services toward the reduction of child stunting and undernourishment. The analysis shows that family wealth and region-specific knowledge about community health care access positively affects child nutrition status measured by height-for-age and weight-for-age. However, these nutrition gains can be reinforced or tempered by differences in mother's education and/or her access to community health services. These findings suggest that interventions which enhance public knowledge about availability and access to health care could strengthen more general development-oriented child nutrition-enhancing interventions, such as poverty reduction or growth in health services infrastructure.

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  • Agee, Mark D., 2010. "Reducing child malnutrition in Nigeria: Combined effects of income growth and provision of information about mothers' access to health care services," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(11), pages 1973-1980, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:71:y:2010:i:11:p:1973-1980
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    2. Burroway, Rebekah & Hargrove, Andrew, 2018. "Education is the antidote: Individual- and community-level effects of maternal education on child immunizations in Nigeria," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 63-71.
    3. Shroff, Monal R. & Griffiths, Paula L. & Suchindran, Chirayath & Nagalla, Balakrishna & Vazir, Shahnaz & Bentley, Margaret E., 2011. "Does maternal autonomy influence feeding practices and infant growth in rural India?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 447-455, August.
    4. Debbie L Humphries & Jere R Behrman & Benjamin T Crookston & Kirk A Dearden & Whitney Schott & Mary E Penny & on behalf of the Young Lives Determinants and Consequences of Child Growth Project Team, 2014. "Households across All Income Quintiles, Especially the Poorest, Increased Animal Source Food Expenditures Substantially during Recent Peruvian Economic Growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-13, November.
    5. Mkupete Jaah Mkupete & Dieter Von Fintel & Ronelle Burger, 2022. "Decomposing inequality of opportunity in child health in Tanzania: The role of access to water and sanitation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(11), pages 2465-2480, November.

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