scores.<sup>29</sup> Appendix Table A1 provides definitions of these and other factors that are examined subsequently. In the pooled sample, 49% of children were female, 3% experienced an illness with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms in the two weeks before the survey, and 31% experienced an illness with fever in the same reference period. In terms of maternal factors, 86% of children were born when their mothers were between 18 and 34 years of age, a range considered to have a lower risk of child death (Rustein and Winter 2014); 20% had mothers that were currently employed; and 85% had mothers who were regularly exposed to mass media as measured by watching TV at least once a week (TV was the most popular mass media source). Mothers’ mean education attainment was 5.68 years. In terms of neighborhood-area factors, 69% of children resided in an area with formal garbage collection, 48% with a proper sewerage system, 51% served by community health workers, 48% with an available NGO health facility; 14% with an available public health facility, and 36% with an available private health facility. All neighborhood areas had pharmacies.

The levels of child health (recent illness with fever or ARI symptoms), mother’s age at child’s birth, mother’s education attainment, mother’s regular exposure to mass media, and formal garbage collection and proper sewerage system in the neighborhood area were less favorable for slum than nonslum children. Household wealth, measured by a standardized household asset index, was roughly one SD lower for slum children. Slum children were more likely to have mothers who were employed (24% versus 13%). Slum neighborhood areas were more likely to have community health workers (55% versus 44%) and less likely to have private health facilities (33% versus 42%). NGO and public health facilities, and pharmacies, were available at similar rates in slum and nonslum neighborhood areas.

> 29 The 2013 BUHS did not collect information on potentially relevant factors such as: for the child, birth weight, diarrhea and treatment, immunization, and deworming; for the mother, physical and mental health (for example, underweight status) and decisionmaking authority over household expenditures on own and child health, and over food for the household; and, for the household, food security. The 2006 BUHS collected information on some of these factors; we find significant differences in the mean levels for several of these factors between slum and nonslum children at that time. While we examine the effects of access to improved toilets later in the paper, the BUHS did not gather information on open defecation. Headey et al. (2015) find that the area-level open defecation rate is negatively associated with HAZ scores in urban areas in particular in Bangladesh. Although the 2013 BUHS collected information on breastfeeding, we do not examine the effect of this factor because of limited variation: for children under two years of age, mothers reported that 70% were breastfed within an hour of birth, and 94% were being breastfed at the time of the survey. Also due to limited variation in our data, we do not include micronutrient supplementation as factors in the regressions: for children under five years of age, 1% were given a nutrient mix and 3% were given iron supplements in the day prior to the survey.

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