Search

Abstract: Undernutrition among children is one of the most important health problems in developing countries. In order to understand the complex pathways affecting undernutrition which is crucial for policy interventions, one needs to explicitly model the dependence chain of immediate, intermediate, and underlying factors affecting undernutrition. Graphical chain models are used here to investigate the determinants of undernutrition in Benin and Bangladesh. While the dependence chain affecting undernutrition contains many common elements, the influence of demographic, cultural, and socioeconomic factors seems to have stronger direct and indirect influences in Benin than in Bangladesh, where many socioeconomic and gender related factors have a more direct influence on undernutrition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Undernutrition is one of the most important health problems in developing countries. Examining its determinants implies the investigation of a complex association structure including a large number of potential influence variables and different types of influences. A recently developed statistical technique to cope with such situations are graphical chain models. In this paper, this approach is used to investigate the determinants of undernutrition in Benin (West Africa). Since this method also reveals indirect influences, interesting insight is gained into the association structure of all variables incorporated. The analysis identifies mother''s education, socioeconomic status, and religion as three variables with particularly strong direct and indirect linkages to undernutrition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]