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Investing in nutrition sensitive sectors such as education can be an effective strategy for combatting malnutrition. In this paper we analyze the role that men's education plays in determining dietary diversity outcomes using primary data from 3600 households across four districts of India. Dietary diversity scores were calculated to reflect the quality of food intake, for households and women. Men's education level was considered as the primary driver of diet diversity. To establish a causal link between men's education and diet diversity, the education level of parents and siblings were used as instrumental variables. We find that men's education levels are associated with significantly higher diet diversity scores both for the household and for women. The role of men's education continues to be a significant determinant of diet quality after controlling for household and individual- level confounding factors including the education level of the woman. The results are consistent across different definitions of the diet diversity score and reference period. Methodologically we extend the evidence on the education–nutrition pathway from being associational to causal in nature. Results from this study point to the benefits of leveraging men's education as an effective pathway for improving nutritional outcomes within households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study sought to identify household risk factors associated with aflatoxin contamination within and across diverse Indian food systems and to evaluate their utility in risk modeling. Samples (n = 595) of cereals, pulses, and oil seeds were collected from 160 households across four diverse districts of India and analyzed for aflatoxin B1 using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Demographic information, food and cropping systems, food management behaviors, and storage environments were profiled for each household. An aflatoxin detection risk index was developed based on household-level features and validated using a repeated 5-fold cross-validation approach. Across districts, between 30–80% of households yielded at least one contaminated sample. Aflatoxin B1 detection rates and mean contamination levels were highest in groundnut and maize, respectively, and lower in other crops. Landholding had a positive univariate effect on household aflatoxin detection, while storage conditions, product source, and the number of protective behaviors used by households did not show significant effects. Presence of groundnut, post-harvest grain washing, use of sack-based storage systems, and cultivation status (farming or non-farming) were identified as the most contributive variables in stepwise logistic regression and were used to generate a household-level risk index. The index had moderate classification accuracy (68% sensitivity and 62% specificity) and significantly correlated with village-wise aflatoxin detection rates. Spatial analysis revealed utility of the index for identifying at-risk localities and households. This study identified several key features associated with aflatoxin contamination in Indian food systems and demonstrated that household characteristics are substantially predictive of aflatoxin risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we establish a statistically important relationship between household agricultural income and women’s BMI using a five-year panel dataset of rural households drawn from 18 villages across five Indian states. Using within household variation over time, we estimate both the extent to which short-term changes in agricultural income are associated with short-term changes in BMI, and the effect of agricultural income growth on BMI growth over a longer term. Over the longer term, and for the group of households that regularly farm, we find a 10 percentage point agricultural income growth to be associated with a 0.10 percentage point growth in BMI. Consistent with the literature, this effect is economically modest, but important considering that we do not find a corresponding effect for growth in non-agricultural income. We show that both the own-production and market purchase of food are associated with nutritional improvements. While women’s BMI is associated with an increase in the consumption of own-produced cereals, the market plays an important role in facilitating access to more nutritious foods like pulses. Lastly, we also find that effects of agricultural income are driven by younger women, in the age-group 15-25 years, who face a particularly strong nutritional disadvantage in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]