Varied patterns of catch-up in child growth: Evidence from Young Lives

Paul Anand, Jere Behrman, Hai-Anh Dang () and Sam Jones

Social Science & Medicine, 2018, vol. 214, issue C, 206-213

Abstract: The development of human capabilities for many disadvantaged children around the world depends on growth recovery (‘catch-up growth’). Here we develop a novel framework that allows different types of catch-up growth to be classified and estimated. We distinguish between catch-up in the mean of a group toward that of a healthy reference population versus catch-up within the group. We show these different growth types can be tested in a unified setting using a latent growth framework. We apply the results to four developing countries, using longitudinal data on 7641 children collected over the period 2002–2013. The results show catch-up growth rates are generally modest but vary significantly between countries, and that local environmental factors are material to variation in child growth trajectories. The paper discusses the benefits of the new framework versus current methods, shows that the method is feasible, and suggests they call for intervention designs that are sensitive to community and country contexts.

Keywords: Ethiopia; India; Peru; Vietnam; Young lives; Catch-up growth; Height; Latent growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.07.003

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