Health and nutrition

Poverty can be both a cause and a result of ill-health, which often results in a vicious circle that is very hard to break. Poor living conditions, insufficient diets and inadequate healthcare usage can lead to ill-health and under-nutrition in children and their families. In turn, ill-health of a family member often results in substantial healthcare costs and loss of income, dragging impoverished families even deeper into poverty.

Due to its multidimensional approach Young Lives is well positioned to explore the role of health for children/families moving in and out of poverty; health and children's abilities to thrive; health and children's resilience and access; usage and quality of health services; and child outcomes.

Another strength of Young Lives is the longitudinal nature of the study which enables us to investigate the mid- and long-term effects of ill-health and poor nutrition while controlling for a huge number of environmental and social factors. Our multidisciplinary approach also allows analysis from several different points of views and methodologies.

In all survey rounds we look at each child’s diet, height and weight; injury, chronic and disabling conditions; usage of healthcare; self-rated health status; and the health status of household members. In Round 3 we also started to collect data on adolescent health risk behaviours (sexual health, tobacco and alcohol use, emotional well-being, experience of violence) in the older cohort (15-year-olds).

Increasingly important areas of Young Lives research include potential links between health and psychosocial competencies and emerging obesity in Young Lives children and their parents.

The paradoxical coexistence of child under-nutrition and maternal overweight within the same household, often described as ‘dual burden of malnutrition’, has been observed in all Young Lives countries, but is a particular public health concern in Peru.