Association between School Performance and Anemia in Adolescents in Mexico

Alejandro Mosiño, Karen P. Villagómez-Estrada and Alberto Prieto-Patrón
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Karen P. Villagómez-Estrada: División de Ciencias Económico Administrativas, Universidad de Guanajuato, CP. 36250 Guanajuato, Mexico
Alberto Prieto-Patrón: Nestlé Research Center, Vers-chez-les-Blanc, PO Box 44, 1000 Lausanne 26, Switzerland

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: In school age children and adolescents, anemia might cause lower cognitive function and attention span, which in turn could diminish human capital accumulation. As children born in low-income households are more likely to be anemic, this may prevent many individuals from overcoming the intergenerational poverty traps. In this paper, we used data from the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey 2012 and focused on a sample of adolescents between 12 and 19 years of age to study the relationship between attending school without delay—our proxy for school performance—and anemia. We found a statistically significant association between the two variables. If this relationship is causal, the economic burden linked to the loss of school years could well exceed the costs associated with programs aimed at reducing the prevalence of anemia in vulnerable populations. Our results provide additional support to the existing literature on anemia as a significant barrier to school achievement.

Keywords: anemia; education; ENSANUT; logit models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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