IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/6584.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Shorter, cheaper, quicker, better : linking measures of household food security to nutritional outcomes in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Uganda, and Tanzania

Author

Listed:
  • Tiwari, Sailesh
  • Skoufias, Emmanuel
  • Sherpa, Maya

Abstract

Using nationally representative household survey data from five countries -- three from South Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal) and two from Sub-Saharan Africa (Tanzania and Uganda) -- this paper conducts a systematic assessment of the correlation between various measures of household food security and nutritional outcomes of children. The analysis, following the universally accepted and applied definition of food security, is based on some of the most commonly used indicators of food security. The results show that the various measures of household food security do appear to carry significant signals about the nutritional status of children that reside within the household. This result holds even after the analysis controls for a wide array of other socio-economic characteristics of the households that are generally also thought to be associated with the quality of child nutrition. If using these food security indicators as proxy measures for the underlying nutritional status of children is of some interest, then the results show that simple, cost-effective, and easy-to-collect measures, such as the food consumption score or the dietary diversity score, may carry at least as much information as other measures, such as per capita expenditure or the starchy staple ratio, which require longer and costlier surveys with detailed food consumption modules. Across five different countries in South Asia and Africa, the results suggest that the food consumption score, in particular, performs extremely well in comparison with all other measures from the perspective of nutritional targeting as well as for monitoring nutritional outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Tiwari, Sailesh & Skoufias, Emmanuel & Sherpa, Maya, 2013. "Shorter, cheaper, quicker, better : linking measures of household food security to nutritional outcomes in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Uganda, and Tanzania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6584, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6584
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/08/26/000158349_20130826151335/Rendered/PDF/WPS6584.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harold Alderman & John Hoddinott & Bill Kinsey, 2006. "Long term consequences of early childhood malnutrition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 450-474, July.
    2. Alderman, Harold & Garcia, Marito, 1994. "Food Security and Health Security: Explaining the Levels of Nutritional Status in Pakistan," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(3), pages 485-507, April.
    3. John A. Maluccio & John Hoddinott & Jere R. Behrman & Reynaldo Martorell & Agnes R. Quisumbing & Aryeh D. Stein, 2009. "The Impact of Improving Nutrition During Early Childhood on Education among Guatemalan Adults," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 734-763, April.
    4. Sergio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 953-973, May.
    5. Glewwe, Paul & Jacoby, Hanan G. & King, Elizabeth M., 2001. "Early childhood nutrition and academic achievement: a longitudinal analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 345-368, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Schwab, 2020. "In the Form of Bread? A Randomized Comparison of Cash and Food Transfers in Yemen," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 91-113, January.
    2. Jones, Lindsey & d'Errico, Marco, 2019. "Whose resilience matters? Like-for-like comparison of objective and subjective evaluations of resilience," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Rosina Wanyama & Theda Gödecke & Matin Qaim, 2019. "Food Security and Dietary Quality in African Slums," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Choudhury, Samira & Headey, Derek D., 2016. "What drives diversification of national food supplies? A cross-country analysis," IFPRI discussion papers 1581, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Hossain, Marup & Mullally, Conner & Asadullah, M Niaz, 2016. "Measuring household food security in a low income country: A comparative analysis of self-reported and objective indicators," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 230101, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    6. Anderson, Kym & Strutt, Anna, 2014. "Food security policy options for China: Lessons from other countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 50-58.
    7. Kedir T. Roba & Thomas P. O’Connor & Nora M. O’Brien & Chanyalew S. Aweke & Zenebe A. Kahsay & Nick Chisholm & Edward Lahiff, 2019. "Seasonal variations in household food insecurity and dietary diversity and their association with maternal and child nutritional status in rural Ethiopia," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(3), pages 651-664, June.
    8. Kym Anderson & Anna Strutt, 2015. "Implications for Indonesia of Asia's Rise in the Global Economy," Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 69-94, April.
    9. repec:fpr:2020cp:1(1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Yanick Fredy Mvodo & François Colin Nkoa, "undated". "Adaptive capacity and nutritional status of households in Cameroon," Review of Socio - Economic Perspectives 202208, Reviewsep.
    11. Fan, Shenggen & Brzeska, Joanna, 2011. "The nexus between agriculture and nutrition: Do growth patterns and conditional factors matter?," 2020 conference briefs 1, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. Kym Anderson & Anna Strutt, 2014. "Growth in Densely Populated Asia: Implications for Primary Product Exporters," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 112-126, January.
    13. Kym Anderson, 2016. "Agricultural Trade, Policy Reforms, and Global Food Security," Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-46925-0, December.
    14. Keenan Marchesi & Marc Rockmore, 2023. "Conflict and nutrition: endogenous dietary responses in Nepal," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(1), pages 281-296, February.
    15. Jones, Lindsey & D'Errico, Marco, 2019. "Whose resilience matters?: like-for-like comparisons of objective and subjective measures of resilience," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101529, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sánchez, Alan & Favara, Marta & Sheridan, Margaret & Behrman, Jere, 2024. "Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S. & Xu, Sijia, 2018. "Impact of Electrification on Children’s Nutritional Status in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 315-330.
    3. Calderón, María Cecilia & Hoddinott, John, 2011. "The Inter-Generational Transmission of Cognitive Abilities in Guatemala," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3105, Inter-American Development Bank.
    4. Dercon, Stefan & Sánchez, Alan, 2012. "Undernutrition and Psychosocial Competencies: Evidence from Four Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 9032, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Goode, Alison & Mavromaras, Kostas & zhu, Rong, 2014. "Family income and child health in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 152-165.
    6. Behrman, Jere R. & Skoufias, Emmanuel, 2004. "Correlates and determinants of child anthropometrics in Latin America: background and overview of the symposium," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 335-351, December.
    7. Piper, Brian, 2014. "A production function examination of the aggregate effects of nutrition," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 293-307.
    8. Armand Mboutchouang Kountchou & Soazic Elise Wang Sonne & Gadom Djal Gadom, 2019. "The Local Impact of Armed Conflict on Children’s Nutrition and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Chad," HiCN Working Papers 301, Households in Conflict Network.
    9. Deshpande, Ashwini & Ramachandran, Rajesh, 2022. "Early childhood stunting and later life outcomes: A longitudinal analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    10. Gross, Jeremie & Guirkinger, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2020. "Buy as you need: Nutrition and food storage imperfections," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    11. Krause, Brooke Laura, 2013. "Childhood Malnutrition and Educational Attainment: An Analysis using Oxford's Young Lives Longitudinal Study in Peru," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150598, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Ingo Outes-Leon & Catherine Porter & Alan Sánchez, 2011. "Early Nutrition and Cognition in Peru," Working Papers 402632300, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    13. Sanchez, Alan & Favara, Marta & Sheridan, Margaret & Behrman, Jere R., 2022. "How Early Nutrition and Foundational Cognitive Skills Interconnect? Evidence from Two Developing Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 15818, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Krause, Brooke Laura, 2012. "Childhood Malnutrition and Educational Attainment: An Analysis using Oxford’s Young Lives Longitudinal Study in Peru," Master's Theses and Plan B Papers 146072, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    15. Outes, Ingo & Porter, Catherine & Sanchez, Alan & Escobal, Javier, 2011. "Early Nutrition and Cognition in Peru: A Within-Sibling Investigation," Working Papers 2011-017, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    16. World Bank Group, 2015. "Rwanda Poverty Assessment," World Bank Publications - Reports 22970, The World Bank Group.
    17. Paul Christian & Brian Dillon, 2018. "Growing and Learning When Consumption Is Seasonal: Long-Term Evidence From Tanzania," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(3), pages 1091-1118, June.
    18. Tushar Bharati & Seungwoo Chin & Dawoon Jung, 2020. "Recovery from an Early-Life Shock through Improved Access to Schools," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 20-04, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    19. Elisabetta Aurino & Francesco Burchi, 2017. "Children’s Multidimensional Health and Medium-Term Cognitive Skills in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(2), pages 289-311, April.
    20. Akresh, Richard & Lucchetti, Leonardo & Thirumurthy, Harsha, 2012. "Wars and child health: Evidence from the Eritrean–Ethiopian conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 330-340.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food&Beverage Industry; Food Security; Regional Economic Development; Rural Poverty Reduction; Nutrition;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6584. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.