Improving parenting practices and child health: Experimental evidence from Sierra Leone

Anjali Chandra, Subha Mani, Heather Dolphin, Meredith Dyson and Yembeh Marah
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Anjali Chandra: Fordham University, Department of Economics
Heather Dolphin: Catholic Relief Services
Meredith Dyson: UNICEF
Yembeh Marah: Catholic Relief Services

Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series from Fordham University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine the impact of an integrated parenting program that seeks to improve parent-child interactions, specifically, foster stimulation, responsive parenting as well as reduce parental abuse, violence, and neglect towards children. Exploiting experimental variation in program access, we show that the intervention was successful in improving children's health, as reflected by a decrease in the prevalence of wasting and improvements in the distribution of weight-for-height zscores. We find improvements in parenting practices related to psychosocial stimulation and harsh discipline to be the primary mechanisms through which children's health improves. Our results show that adding a parenting curriculum on stimulation, child abuse, and neglect to standard nutritional counseling can have important implications for children's lifetime well-being.

Keywords: Early childhood development; nutrition; stimulation; randomized control trial; parenting intervention; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 I25 J13 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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