A Capability Approach to Child Growth

Sepideh Yousefzadeh, Mario Biggeri, Caterina Arciprete () and Hinke Haisma
Additional contact information
Sepideh Yousefzadeh: University of Groningen
Caterina Arciprete: University of Florence
Hinke Haisma: University of Groningen

Child Indicators Research, 2019, vol. 12, issue 2, No 18, 731 pages

Abstract: Abstract For decades, child growth monitoring has been performed by measuring anthropometric indicators and comparing them against universal standards. Since the 1970s various efforts have been made to expand the focus from anthropometric indicators and include broader contextual and structural factors that influence children’s growth. However, those efforts have so far not led to changes in the dimensions that are taken into account in child growth monitoring. In this paper we introduce the Capability Approach asan evaluative framework for growth monitoring of children under five years old. Applying the CA helps focusing on what children are able to achieve by analyzing their available resources (endowments), as well as the mechanisms that could enhance or restrict their access to those resources (conversion factors). In addition, children’s growth could be assessed alongside the caregivers’ capabilities that children rely on to achieve their full growth potential. We present a child growth evaluation framework as well as a matrix, which has different categories of dimensions that interact with each other and ultimately shape children’s growth. The framework is a flexible tool, and is thus broad enough to accommodate contextual differences.

Keywords: Child growth; Growth monitoring charts; Capability approach; Multidimensional measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12187-018-9548-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:chinre:v:12:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s12187-018-9548-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... f-life/journal/12187

DOI: 10.1007/s12187-018-9548-1

Access Statistics for this article

Child Indicators Research is currently edited by Asher Ben-Arieh

More articles in Child Indicators Research from Springer, The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().