Indicators of Child Malnutrition among Different Social Groups in West Bengal, India: An Analysis Based on National Family Health Survey (NFHS-V)

An attempt has been made here to examine the probable indicators associated with the child underweight belonging to the age group 0–5 years across different socio-ethnic groups in West Bengal, India using National Family Health Survey NFHS-V (2019–2021) data. Multilevel logistic regression models are employed to examine the direct and joint effects of child background such as gender, birth weight etc., maternal characteristics such as mothers’ education, BMI, Anemia status etc., and socioeconomic characteristics like wealth class, caste etc. on the underweight children. We find that indicators from different axes such as gender, birth weight, place of delivery, mother’s education, mother’s BMI level, household wealth quintiles and social class significantly impact the probability of being underweight among children. The findings of the interactive variables suggest that female children belonging to the poorest of the poor families and disadvantaged groups residing in rural areas exhibit a higher probability of being underweight. The interactive and joint effects results suggest implementing disaggregated public health policies. We recommend integrating the existing health policies to the poverty eradication programme to obtain a socially desirable result of nutritional equity among the children.