Skip to main content
Home
  • Data & Research
  • Publications
  • Findings & Impact
  • Search

  • Themes
  • Blog
  • About
  • Young Lives News & Events
  • People
  • Countries

Home+
Themes+
Poverty & Inequality+
Inequality
Migration and mobility
Poverty and shocks
Social protection
Well-being and aspirations
Health & Nutrition+
Early childhood development
Malnutrition and cognitive development
Stunting and catch-up growth
Water and Sanitation
Education+
Early education
Low-fee private schooling
Low-fee private schooling
School effectiveness
Adolescence, Youth and Gender+
Gender
Marriage and parenthood
Child protection+
Children's work
Early marriage and FGM
Violence
Skills & Work
Blog
About
Young Lives News & Events+
Events
Past events
Media coverage
Our Research Films
Galleries
People+
Young Lives Associates
International Advisory Board
Research Partners
Countries

You are here

  • Home
  • Home
  • Publications
  • Rural–Urban Child Height for Age Trajectories and Their Heterogeneous Determinants in Four Developing Countries

Publications

  • Rural–Urban Child Height for Age Trajectories and Their Heterogeneous Determinants in Four Developing Countries

Share

 
Tweet
Email

Rural–Urban Child Height for Age Trajectories and Their Heterogeneous Determinants in Four Developing Countries

June, 2016
Laura B. Nolan
  • Access to services
  • Stunting and catch-up growth
Population Research and Policy Review, 2016, vol. 35, issue 5

Preview

The large literature on health differentials between rural and urban areas relies almost exclusively on cross-sectional data. Bringing together the demographic literature on area-level health inequalities with the bio-physiological literature on children’s catch-up growth over time, this paper uses panel data to investigate the stability and origins of rural–urban health differentials. Using data from the Young Lives longitudinal study of child poverty, the author presents evidence of large level differences but similar trends in rural versus urban children’s height for age in four developing countries.

Further, observable characteristics of children’s environment such as their household wealth, mother’s education, and epidemiological environment explain these differentials in most contexts. In Peru, where they do not, children’s birthweight and mothers’ health and other characteristics suggest that initial endowments—even before birth—may play an important role in explaining "residual" rural–urban child height inequalities. These latter results imply that prioritizing maternal nutrition and health is essential—particularly where rural–urban height inequalities are large. Interventions to reduce area-level health inequalities should begin even before birth.

Keywords

Health inequalities, area-level health differentials, early life health.

Download Rural–Urban Child Height for Age Trajectories and Their Heterogeneous Determinants in Four Developing Countries.

About

Our people
Our funders
Our research
Contact Young Lives

Newsletter signup

Where we work

  • Ethiopia
  • India
  • Peru
  • Vietnam

Our themes

  • Poverty & Inequality
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Education
  • Gender & Youth
  • Child Protection
  • Skills & Work

Oxford Department of  International Development (ODID)
University of Oxford,  Queen Elizabeth House
3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB, UK

Copyright 2021 Young Lives
|Privacy policy|Accessibility Statement|Sitemap