Modelling under-nutrition in under-five children in Malawi

Despite numerous Government efforts to tackle the problem of child under-nutrition in Malawi, the levels of child under-nutrition remain high with stunting estimated at 47% and underweight at 12.7% . This thesis investigates whether the levels and patterns of stunting and underweight in Malawi have changed between the years 2000 and 2010 and if so how. It studies how feeding patterns and child immunisation affects child’s nutritional status in Malawi and analyses the different pathways through which household and community level socio-economic factors affect a child’s nutritional status in Malawi. The Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS) data sets of 2000, 2004 and 2010 are used in the study of levels and patterns of child under-nutrition in Malawi whilst the 2004 MDHS is used to investigate how feeding patterns and child immunisation affect a child’s nutritionals status in Malawi. The 2004 Malawi Integrated Household Survey data is merged with the 2004 Community level to analyse the pathways through which household and community level socio-economic factors affect child nutritional status in Malawi. Results of this study show that children from communities that have a daily market are less likely to be stunted compared to children from communities without a daily market. Children from communities that trace their descendants through their father have a lower likelihood of stunting compared to children from communities that trace their descendants through the mother due to being of relatively higher economic status. The levels of stunting and underweight have gone down significantly from 54.1% and 21.4% respectively in the year 2000 to 47.1% and 12.7% respectively in 2010. However, the percentage of children that are stunted but not affected with other under-nutrition problems has hardly changed, estimated at 37.2% in 2000 and 36.2% in 2010. Although generally female children are less likely to be stunted and less likely to be underweight, female children are more likely to be underweight as they get older. Contrary to what one would expect, children are more likely to be stunted during harvest time compared to the hunger season. Most of the children are fed food from the local grain, whilst in fact children aged between 7 to 36 months who consume food from animal sources are less likely to be undernourished. Children whose mothers are in possession of a child health card1 are less likely to be underweight. The Malawi Government should therefore intensify its efforts of encouraging mothers to attend under-five clinics, feed children that are undergoing weaning food from animal sources and should invest more in programmes that boost socio-economic status such as education and entrepreneurship skills.