metadata: authors: 0: author: Feng,Juan
1: author: Alam,Shamma Adeeb
2: author: Eozenou,Patrick Hoang-Vu
count: World
docna: 0: docna: Malnutrition Gap as a New Measure of Child
            Malnutrition : A Global Application
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Nutrition,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children's Health,Inequality,Social Cohesion,Economic Growth
teratopic: Health, Nutrition and Population,Poverty Reduction,Social Development,Macroeconomics and Economic Growth
abstracts: cdata!: "Leaving no one behind" is an
            overarching principle of the Sustainable Development Goals.
            Many countries are prioritizing resources for those who are
            furthest behind. Existing malnutrition
            indicators—underweight, stunting, wasting, overweight, and
            severe wasting—are headcount ratios. They do not capture how
            far behind malnourished children are relative to the World
            Health Organization growth standards. To understand the
            severity of malnutrition, this study develops a new
            malnutrition measurement, using the method originally
            developed for estimating poverty. This study estimates the
            prevalence, gap, and gap squared for stunting, wasting,
            overweight, and underweight, using data from 94 developing
            countries over 20 years. The results show that although in
            most cases the headcount measures and gap measures are
            moving in the same direction, in many other cases, they are
            moving in opposite directions. Moreover, employing the new
            measures, the study can identify countries that have low
            levels of headcount for a malnutrition measure but
            comparatively high severity of malnutrition according to the
            gap measures, and vice versa. This suggests that these new
            malnutrition measures provide additional information on the
            severity of malnutrition that is not possible to be known
            from headcount measures. These new measures of the severity
            of malnutrition can therefore improve the monitoring of
            child malnutrition across countries, and consequently help
            countries to achieve their Sustainable Development Goals.
repnme: repnme: Malnutrition Gap as a New Measure of Child
            Malnutrition : A Global Application
display_title: Malnutrition Gap as a New Measure of
            Child Malnutrition : A Global Application
listing_relative_url: /research/2018/12/30661998/malnutrition-gap-new-measure-child-malnutrition-global-application
topicv3: Early Marriage m1326033 2444,Poverty m1326687 695,Stunting m1327504 1445,Sustainable Development Goals m1504460 3134,Malnutrition m1627088 4737
publishtoextweb_dt: 2018-12-04T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Health, Nutrition and Population,Poverty Reduction,Social Development,Macroeconomics and Economic Growth
no_of_pages: 30
author_keys: 0: author_key: 902985
1: author_key: 1273854
2: author_key: 1175217
model_extractions: WPS8664 Policy Research Working Paper 8664

# Malnutrition Gap as a New Measure of Child Malnutrition

A Global Application _Juan Feng Shamma Alam Patrick Hoang-Vu Eozenou_ Development Economics Development Data Group December 2018
Policy Research Working Paper 8664

# **Abstract**

“Leaving no one behind” is an overarching principle of the Sustainable Development Goals. Many countries are prioritizing resources for those who are furthest behind. Existing malnutrition indicators—underweight, stunting, wasting, overweight, and severe wasting—are headcount ratios. They do not capture how far behind malnourished children are relative to the World Health Organization growth standards. To understand the severity of malnutrition, this study develops a new malnutrition measurement, using the method originally developed for estimating poverty. This study estimates the prevalence, gap, and gap squared for stunting, wasting, overweight, and underweight, using data from 94 developing countries over 20 years. The results show that although in most cases the headcount measures and gap measures are moving in the same direction, in many other cases, they are moving in opposite directions. Moreover, employing the new measures, the study can identify countries that have low levels of headcount for a malnutrition measure but comparatively high severity of malnutrition according to the gap measures, and vice versa. This suggests that these new malnutrition measures provide additional information on the severity of malnutrition that is not possible to be known from headcount measures. These new measures of the severity of malnutrition can therefore improve the monitoring of child malnutrition across countries, and consequently help countries to achieve their Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper is a product of the Development Data Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/research. The authors may be contacted at juan.feng@fao.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# **Malnutrition Gap as a New Measure of Child Malnutrition: A Global Application**

Juan Feng<sup>*</sup> , Shamma Alam<sup>†</sup> , and Patrick Hoang-Vu Eozenou<sup>‡</sup>

# Keywords: new measurement; malnutrition; gap; severity; global dataset

_Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations or the World Bank._

> * Corresponding author, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, juan.feng@fao.org

> † Dickinson College, alams@dickinson.edu

> ‡ The World Bank, <u>peozenou@worldbank.org</u>

The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding from the Knowledge for Change Program (KCP).
# **1. Introduction**

A renewed aspiration from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) calls for achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets for reduction of stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age.<sup>1</sup> “Leaving no one behind” is an overarching principle of the newly adopted SDGs. The UN 2016 SDGs Report states, _“In committing to the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Member States recognized that the dignity of the individual is fundamental and that the Agenda’s Goals and targets should be met for all nations and people and for all segments of society. Furthermore, they endeavored to reach first those who are furthest behind.” (UNSD 2016, p. 48)_ The World Health Organization (WHO) defines child malnutrition as growth measures more than 2 standard deviations (SD) below the median WHO growth standards. In addition, the WHO defines severe acute child malnutrition as weight for height below -3SD from the median WHO growth standards (WHO and UNICEF 2009). Existing child malnutrition indicators include prevalence of underweight (weight for age below -2SD), stunting (height for age below -2SD), wasting (weight for height below -2SD), overweight (weight for height above 2SD), and severe wasting (weight for height below -3SD).

These prevalence indicators are headcount measures and do not vary with the distance between individual Z-scores (number of SD) and the WHO reference lines. And thus, such headcount measures fail to identify malnourished children furthest away from the reference line, i.e. the inequality in malnutrition present among the malnourished population. As the SDGs require

> 1 - United Nations. Sustainable Development Goals. (http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable <u>development-goals).</u>

2
more granular data to monitor progress, it has motivated us to develop new indictors to provide supplemental, yet critical, evidence to the conventional indicators.

There have only been a limited number of studies that attempt to develop a measure of severity of child malnutrition. McDonald et al. (2014) proposes a measure of malnutrition based on the notion of multiple anthropometric deficits. For example, a child is considered to be severely malnourished if she/he is both stunted and underweight. However, this measure is still a headcount measure, and it compounds the information when people want to know how stunted and how underweight a child is separately.

In contrast, studies by Shekar et al. (2015) and Jolliffe (2004 & 2004) adopt the techniques used for measuring poverty to measure nutrition outcomes. Specifically, they put the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (1984, hereafter referred to as FGT) class of poverty indicators in the context of malnutrition. Shekar et al. (2015) estimated FGT(0) as the stunting prevalence (similar to the poverty headcount measure) and FGT(1) as the stunting gap (similar to the poverty gap) in Mali from 2001 to 2013. Similarly, Jolliffe (2004 & 2004) uses FGT to calculate the overweight gap and gap-squared to understand the overweight problem in the U.S. They demonstrated that the stunting gap and overweight gap, analogous to the poverty gap, can provide further information in addition to the stunting prevalence in nutrition diagnostics and policy recommendations.

This paper aims to provide supplementary, but critical, information to the conventional headcount measures of malnutrition. Specifically, following Shekar et al. (2015), this paper will adopt the techniques used for measuring the depth and severity of poverty to measure the severity of malnutrition. More specifically, we develop the following eight measures of malnutrition in this study: (i) stunting gap, (ii) stunting gap squared, (iii) wasting gap, (iv) wasting gap squared, (v) 3
overweight gap, (vi) overweight gap squared, (vii) underweight gap, and (viii) underweight gap squared.

This study makes two important contributions to the research literature. First, while the stunting gap measure has been developed by Shekar et al. (2015), the other seven measures of malnutrition are developed for the first time in this study. Hence, in addition to the conventional headcount indicators, these proposed indicators can provide useful information about a country’s malnutrition status, especially on the depth and severity of malnutrition, which can consequently improve evidence-based decision-making. Second, we employ over 20 years of malnutrition data from 94 developing countries to calculate the new measures. Employing the new measures, we are able to identify countries that have low levels of headcount for a malnutrition measure, but comparatively high severity of malnutrition according to the gap and gap-squared measures, and vice versa. This allows us to identify cases where headcount measures may be providing an incomplete description of a certain country’s malnutrition status.

From a policy perspective, it is important to distinguish between malnutrition measures based on the headcount and measures of depth and severity in malnutrition. As countries are in particular committed to reach first those who are furthest behind in order to realize the SDGs 2030 agenda, high-quality data are needed for monitoring the progress of these individuals and providing evidence for effective policy making.

We proceed as follows. Section 2 discusses the methodology for the new measures. Section 3 describes the data used in the empirical application. Section 4 presents the results. Section 5 concludes.

**2. Methodology**

4
While we adopt the method of Shekar et al. (2015), it is not the only application of the FGT poverty indicators in non-monetary indicators. Nguyen and Wodon (2012, 2015) applied the same approach to the estimation of child marriage. Apart from estimating the incidence of child marriage (the share of girls marrying before age 18), they also estimated the “child marriage gap,” which accounts for how early a girl marries.

We intend to generalize the method for all of the aforementioned existing malnutrition indicators and produce the gap estimate for every country with data, using a standardized data set of growth Z-scores calculated from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). We will also extend the calculation to the squared malnutrition gap, i.e., FGT(2). Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (1984) showed that the FGT class of poverty indicators have a number of attractive axiomatic properties such as additive decomposability and subgroup consistency.

Analog to the poverty gap, the malnutrition gap is defined as the average shortfall of children’s Z-scores of an anthropometric measure from the reference line (counting zero shortfall for non-malnourished children) as a proportion of the reference line. It measures how far off a child is from the WHO growth standards. Taking stunting as an example, the national average stunting gap ( _Gap_ ) can be expressed as where N denotes the total number of children under 5 years of age in a given population, M denotes the number of stunted children, and z� denotes individual Z-scores of stunting and z� ��2 in this equation. Implicitly in this equation, the shortfall for non-stunted children is zero when z� ��2. Subsequently, the national average squared stunting gap ( _SqGap_ ) can be expressed as 5
The squared malnutrition gap takes into account not only the distance between the malnourished children and the reference line (the malnutrition gap), but also the inequality among the malnourished children. That is, a higher weight is placed on those who are further away from the reference line.

# **3. Data**

We reanalyzed all DHS and MICS, phases 3 onwards, and calculated individual Z-scores for all children with available anthropometric data according to the WHO standard approach. As of today, we obtained estimates for 168 DHS from 1993 to 2014 and 70 MICS from 2005 to 2014. These surveys combined cover 94 countries. Annex 1 lists all the surveys included in this data set.

The recalculation of Z-scores was based on the WHO child growth standards and prevalence estimates were generated following standard analysis as per available Stata macro (http://www.who.int/childgrowth/software/en/). The recalculated Z-scores may generate slightly different prevalence estimates from those published by DHS and MICS reports, mainly due to the use of the WHO standard approach, which (i) uses all valid Z-scores for each child, and (ii) imputes the missing day of birth as 15.

Each of our surveys is representative for the data collection areas, and most are nationally representative for the country. Therefore, we use survey weights in our analysis to ensure that we have a representative estimation for the country or the areas where data were collected.

# **4. Results**

6
# _4.1 Comparison of Changes in Malnutrition Headcount and Malnutrition Gap_

We applied the class of FGT measures to each of the malnutrition indicators and produced results for all eight measures mentioned in section 1. Given the space limitation, we limit our discussions on the results to the primary malnutrition indicator – stunting. For interested audiences, the whole data set is available upon request.

One of the motivations to develop these new measures is to obtain insight that is not offered by the headcount measures. For example, if the malnutrition gap of a country increases significantly over time, but the malnutrition headcount does not, it would indicate that malnutrition severity in a country is increasing over time, a fact that is not captured by the headcount measure. This is why we examine whether the headcount measure and gap measure change in a similar manner over time for each country.

To understand these changes, we measure the change in malnutrition headcount and the change in malnutrition gap over each consecutive survey rounds for each country. We identify whether the headcount measure and gap measure increase significantly, decrease significantly, or face no significant change over time. If there is a significant change in one measure (headcount or gap), but no significant change or a significant change in the opposite direction for the other measure, then we categorize those two differing changes as “headcount and gap moving in different directions.” In contrast, if both the headcount and gap remain statistically unchanged, or increase or decrease statistically significantly, then we categorize them as “headcount and gap moving in the same direction.” Figure 1 presents four examples of countries where the headcount and gap are moving in the same direction and four examples of countries where the headcount and gap are moving in different directions. For the cases of the headcount and gap moving in the same direction, we can observe 7
that the headcount and gap track each other closely for all four countries: Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Kazakhstan and Niger. In contrast, for countries where the headcount and gap are moving in different directions, we can observe the opposite movements in each measure. For example, the stunting headcount remained the same for Chad from 1996 to 2004 (44%). However, in that same period, the stunting gap in Chad increased from 29% to 32%. Similarly for Mozambique, the stunting headcount increased by 2 percentage points between 1997 and 2003 and decreased by 1 percentage point between 2008 and 2011. In contrast, the stunting gap moved in the opposite direction: it decreased by 3 percentage points between 1997 and 2003 and increased by 2 percentage points between 2008 and 2011.

Figure 1a Examples of countries with gap and headcount moving in same direction <!-- Start of picture text --> Colombia Cote d'Ivoire<br>20% 40%<br>35%<br>15%<br>30%<br>25%<br>10%<br>20%<br>5% 15%<br>10%<br>0% 1993 1998 2003 2008<br>1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011<br>Headcount Gap<br>Headcount<br><!-- End of picture text --> 8
<!-- Start of picture text --> Kazakhstan Niger<br>20%<br>55%<br>16%<br>45%<br>12%<br>35%<br>8%<br>25%<br>4% 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012<br>1998 2002 2006 2010<br>Headcount Gap<br>Headcount<br><!-- End of picture text --> Figure 1b Examples of countries with gap and headcount moving in different directions <!-- Start of picture text --> Chad Nigeria<br>42%<br>44%<br>40%<br>37%<br>36%<br>32%<br>32%<br>28%<br>27%<br>1996 2004<br>2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008<br>Headcount Headcount<br><!-- End of picture text --> 9
<!-- Start of picture text --> Madagascar<br>Mozambique<br>50%<br>45%<br>50%<br>40%<br>35%<br>40%<br>30%<br>25%<br>30%<br>20%<br>1997 2003<br>1996 2001 2006 2011 Headcount Gap<br>Headcount<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS and MICS._ These results may imply the effects of different policy interventions. Overall, the fact that in most cases the headcount and gap are moving in the same direction (and improving) is supportive of the fact that the policies in place have been effective for all the children below the reference line, not just those closest to it. For example, countries like Colombia that have lowered both the stunting headcount and stunting gap may have targeted their interventions to all children and brought them above, or closer to, the reference line (Figure 1a). Likewise, a country for which the gap is improving but not the headcount may have targeted its interventions to the most malnourished, and the effects of this targeting are not showing up yet on the headcount (Figure 1b). By contrast, if a country wants to prioritize its efforts and investments towards those children who are the closest to the reference line, this would be consistent with an improving headcount without necessarily seeing improvements in the gap measures (Figure 1b).

Figure 1 only provides a handful of examples. To have a comprehensive understanding of the differences in trends in the headcount and gap measures across all developing countries, it is 10
important to understand the proportion of countries that have headcount and gap measures moving in different directions. In Table 1, we present the results of our analysis where we summarize the number and percentage of countries that had the headcount and gap either (i) moving in the same direction, or (ii) moving in different directions.

Given there is a strong long-term decreasing trend in malnutrition across most countries, to understand whether the gap measure is changing differently than headcount measures, it is important to measure changes in malnutrition over relatively short periods of time. For a fair comparison of changes in malnutrition over time across countries, we want to compare all countries over the same time period. Therefore, we chose the following three overlapping time ranges: years 1993 to 2005, 2000 to 2009, and 2005 to 2014. We chose overlapping time ranges to ensure that we have sufficient number of countries with consecutive survey rounds in each of the three time ranges; otherwise, we would be unable to measure changes over time for certain periods. As repeat surveys occur within 5 years of a prior round for most countries, we have an overlap of 5 years between the three time ranges to ensure that we cover the greatest number of consecutive survey rounds.

As shown in Table 1, we find that between 1993 and 2005, 29 percent of cases represented the stunting headcount and gap moving in different directions than each other. Similarly, for the periods 2000-2009 and 2005-2014, we find that for 17 percent of cases, the stunting headcount and gap are moving in different directions. We observe similar percentages, 21 percent, 17 percent and 17 percent respectively, over the three periods for the underweight measures. In contrast, we observe lower percentages, 6 percent, 11 percent, and 5 percent respectively, for the overweight measures. However, overall, these results suggest that the stunting gap provides additional 11
important information on the severity of malnutrition that is not always represented by headcount measures.

Table 1 Changes in headcount and gap for child stunting, underweight and overweight

||Changes fr<br>20<br>|om 1993 to<br>05|Changes f<br>20<br>|rom 2000-<br>09|Changes fr<br>20<br>|om 2005 to<br>14|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Number||Number||Number||
||<br>of<br>countries|% of<br>countries|<br>of<br>countries|% of<br>countries|<br>of<br>countries|% of<br>countries|
|_Stunting_|||||||
|<br>Headcount and gap<br>moving in same direction|24|71%|29|83%|49|83%|
|<br>Headcount and gap<br>moving in different<br>direction|10|29%|6|17%|10|17%|
|_Underweight_<br>Headcount and gap<br>moving in same direction|27|79%|29|83%|49|83%|
|<br>Headcount and gap<br>moving in different<br>direction|7|21%|6|17%|10|17%|
|_Overweight_|||||||
|<br>Headcount and gap<br>moving in same direction|32|91%|31|89%|56|95%|
|<br>Headcount and gap<br>moving in different<br>direction|2|6%|4|11%|3|5%|

_Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS and MICS._

# _4.2: Comparison of Severity for Countries with Similar Headcounts_

In addition to understanding changes in malnutrition over time, it would also be useful to examine how the malnutrition gap and gap-squared vary for countries with similar headcount rates. If the malnutrition gap and gap-squared measures are substantially different for countries that have similar headcount rates, it would indicate that the gap measures are capturing information regarding severity that is not captured in the headcount measures. This is why we compare the gap and gap-squared measures for countries that have similar headcount rates, i.e. headcount rates within one percentage point of another country.

12
Ideally, we would want to compare the malnutrition status across countries for each year. However, as we do not have malnutrition data for enough countries for each year, we instead create four time periods: 1993-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010, and 2011-2014. Both Figure 2 and Table 2 illustrate how diverse the stunting gaps can be for countries with similar stunting prevalence. In Figure 2, for example, Pakistan, Timor-Leste and Burundi have a similar headcount ratio (57.7%, 56.4% and 57.4% respectively) in 2009-2010, but their gaps are various (45.2%, 37.6% and 32.5% respectively).

In Table 2, we provide examples of countries whose stunting headcount is within 1 percentage point of another country, but their gap and gap-squared measures are statistically significantly different from the other (tested using a t-test). Each group of countries is shaded or unshaded for ease of visualization in the table. For example, the first two countries in the list are Ethiopia and Nepal. Ethiopia has a stunting headcount rate of 57 percent and Nepal has 56 percent. However, their stunting gap and stunting gap-squared are substantially different, which is expressed in the t-test results in the last column, which examines whether the difference in the gap between the countries is statistically significant. The stunting gap and gap-squared for Ethiopia are both 38 percent, but for Nepal they are 31 and 28 percent, respectively. Similarly, the next set of countries, India, Bangladesh, and Tanzania, have similar stunting headcount rates: 50, 50, and 49 percent, respectively. However, India’s gap and gap squared measures are substantially different from the other two countries. India’s stunting gap rate is 33 percent compared to 28 percent for Bangladesh and Tanzania. And the stunting gap squared in India is 35 percent, which is substantially higher than 24 percent for Bangladesh and Tanzania. This shows that India has more severe malnutrition even though a similar fraction of its population suffers from stunting as in Bangladesh and Tanzania. The rest of Table 2 provides similar differences between the headcount 13
and gap measures, which suggests that the gap measures are capturing important differences in malnutrition status that the headcount measure does not, which points to the importance of these new measures.

Figure 2 Comparison of stunting head count ratios and stunting gaps <!-- Start of picture text --> 50%<br>Pakistan 2010<br>45%<br>40%<br>Timor‐Leste 2009<br>35%<br>Burundi 2010<br>30%<br>25%<br>20%<br>15%<br>10%<br>5%<br>0%<br>0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%<br>Headcount (%)<br>1993‐2000 2001‐2005 2006‐2010 2011‐2014<br>Gap (%)<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS and MICS._ 14
|Table 2: List of countries<br>Country|/surveys with<br>Year|similar h<br>Source|eadcount rate<br>Stunting<br>headcount|s but differ<br> <br>Stunting<br>gap|ent gap meas<br>Stunting<br>gap squared|ures<br>t-stat<br>for gap|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Years: 1993-2000**|||||||
|Ethiopia|2000|DHS|57%|38%|38%||
|Nepal|1996|DHS|56%|31%|28%|7.8|
|India|1998|DHS|50%|33%|35%||
|Bangladesh|1999|DHS|50%|28%|24%|9.4|
|Tanzania|1996|DHS|49%|28%|24%|9.3|
|Nigeria|1999|DHS|47%|38%|43%||
|Rwanda|2000|DHS|48%|28%|25%|7.0|
|Tanzania|1999|DHS|48%|26%|21%|7.9|
|Niger|1998|DHS|46%|29%|29%|5.6|
|Uganda|2000|DHS|44%|24%|21%||
|Burkina Faso|1998|DHS|44%|28%|28%|5.2|
|Chad|1996|DHS|44%|29%|29%|6.3|
|Mozambique|1997|DHS|44%|30%|31%|6.5|
|Uzbekistan|1996|DHS|34%|23%|24%||
|Bolivia|1994|DHS|34%|18%|16%|3.5|
|Zimbabwe|1999|DHS|33%|17%|15%|4.0|
|Egypt, Arab Rep.|1995|DHS|33%|20%|20%||
|Bolivia|1998|DHS|33%|16%|13%|7.4|
|Kyrgyzstan|1997|DHS|32%|13%|10%|6.9|
|**Years: 2001‐2005**|||||||
|Malawi|2004|DHS|51%|32%|30%||
|Bangladesh|2004|DHS|50%|26%|21%|8.1|
|Mozambique|2003|DHS|46%|27%|26%||
|Sierra Leone|2005|MICS|46%|31%|33%|5.0|
|Chad|2004|DHS|44%|32%|34%||
|Tanzania|2004|DHS|44%|22%|17%|12.8|
|Lesotho|2004|DHS|44%|24%|21%|7.0|
|Cambodia|2005|DHS|42%|21%|17%||
|Nigeria|2003|DHS|42%|28%|30%|8.6|
|<br>Mali|2001|DHS|42%|27%|27%|8.4|
|Congo (Brazzaville)|2005|DHS|30%|18%|16%||
|Honduras|2005|DHS|30%|13%|9%|8.3|

15
|Country|Year|Source|Stunting<br>headcount|<br>Stunting<br>gap|Stunting<br>gap squared|<br>t-stat<br>for gap|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Years: 2006‐2010**|||||||
|Pakistan (Balochistan)|2010|MICS|57%|45%|51%||
|Burundi|2010|DHS|57%|32%|28%|12.3|
|Timor Leste|2009|DHS|56%|38%|38%|8.0|
|Guinea‐Bissau|2006|MICS|46%|31%|32%||
|Malawi|2010|DHS|46%|25%|21%|6.8|
|Zambia|2007|DHS|45%|25%|22%|6.7|
|Congo, Democratic Republic|2007|DHS|44%|29%|31%||
|Rwanda|2010|DHS|44%|21%|17%|8.6|
|Bangladesh|2007|DHS|43%|20%|16%||
|Sierra Leone|2010|MICS|43%|28%|29%|11.7|
|Central African Republic|2006|MICS|43%|29%|30%|13.1|
|Tanzania|2010|DHS|42%|20%|16%||
|Benin|2006|DHS|42%|27%|29%|13.2|
|Congo, Democratic Republic|2010|MICS|43%|26%|24%|9.7|
|Nigeria|2007|MICS|41%|32%|37%||
|Tanzania|2010|DHS|42%|20%|16%|19.8|
|Central African Republic|2010|MICS|40%|21%|18%|18.4|
|Cambodia|2010|DHS|40%|18%|14%|15.3|
|Tanzania|2010|DHS|42%|20%|16%|19.8|
|Somalia|2006|MICS|41%|29%|31%|12.3|
|Cambodia|2010|DHS|40%|18%|14%||
|Chad|2010|MICS|39%|26%|27%|13.4|
|Côte D’Ivoire|2006|MICS|39%|23%|21%|7.3|
|Nigeria|2008|DHS|39%|27%|29%|15.3|
|Nigeria|2008|DHS|39%|27%|29%||
|Lesotho|2009|DHS|39%|19%|15%|10.6|
|Uganda|2006|DHS|38%|19%|16%|10.6|
|Sierra Leone|2008|DHS|35%|24%|26%|10.3|
|Kenya|2008|DHS|35%|18%|15%|7.3|
|Zimbabwe|2009|MICS|35%|15%|12%|10.3|
|Burkina Faso|2010|DHS|34%|18%|16%|6.9|
|Djibouti|2006|MICS|32%|25%|30%||
|Zimbabwe|2010|DHS|32%|14%|10%|9.1|
|South Sudan|2010|MICS|30%|20%|21%||
|Eswatini|2010|MICS|31%|13%|9%|9.9|
|Togo|2010|MICS|30%|12%|9%|11.3|
|São Tomé and Príncipe|2008|DHS|29%|15%|14%||
|Peru|2007|DHS|28%|10%|6%|5.0|
|Egypt, Arab Rep.|2008|DHS|28%|17%|16%||
|Peru|2007|DHS|28%|10%|6%|10.7|

16
|Country|Year|Source|Stunting<br>headcount|Stunting<br>gap|Stunting<br>gap squared|<br>t-stat<br>for gap|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Peru|2008|DHS|27%|10%|6%||
|Syrian Arab Republic|2006|MICS|27%|17%|18%|14.6|
|**Years: 2011‐2013**|||||||
|Benin|2011|DHS|45%|37%|45%||
|Ethiopia|2011|DHS|44%|25%|23%|17.9|
|Lao PDR|2011|MICS|44%|23%|20%|21.6|
|Congo, Democratic Republic|2013|DHS|42%|26%|25%||
|Bangladesh|2011|DHS|41%|19%|16%|11.3|

_Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS and MICS._

# _4.3: Regional Analysis_

Until now we have focused on headcount and gap measures only at the country level. Extending this analysis to the regional level may provide further insight on malnutrition across the world. Therefore, we examine the regional averages of malnutrition. As survey data are not available every year for most countries, only a few countries in a particular region have a survey in a given year, with some regions having no survey conducted in certain years.

There are two common practices for calculating regional averages in such cases: (1) modeling methods and (2) aggregating over a range of years. An example of modeling methods closely related to this study is the UNICEF-WHO-World Bank joint child malnutrition estimates (JME) (UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank 2018). The JME adopts linear mixed-effect models allowing for random effects at the country level and for heterogeneous covariance structures. One model is fitted for each region or country group for calculating its aggregated number. Such modeling methods are beyond the scope of this study. For simplicity, we chose to calculate regional averages for a range of years following the exercise in Nguyen and Wodon (2015). Thus, we create regional averages for five-year periods: 1993-1997, 1998-2002, 2003-2007, and 20082012. We use these five-year periods so that the middle years of these ranges,1995, 2000, 2005, 17
and 2010, coincide with the years in which under-five population data are compiled for each country in the sample.

We create regional averages of stunting measures weighted by the under-five population of each country of the middle of each reference period. Following the World Bank regional classification, we divide the countries in our sample into six regions: East Asia and Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Latin America & Caribbean (LAC), Middle East & North Africa (MNA), South Asia (SAS), and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). These regional averages are presented in Figure 3 using two graphs that show (i) headcount rates for the different regions, and (ii) gap rates for the regions.

Figure 3: Regional trends of stunting headcount and stunting gap <!-- Start of picture text --> Stunting headcount<br>70%<br>60%<br>50%<br>40%<br>30%<br>20%<br>10%<br>0%<br>1995 2000 2005 2010<br>East Asia and Pacific Europe and Central Asia<br>Latin America & Carribean Middle East and North Africa<br>South Asia Sub‐Saharan Africa<br><!-- End of picture text --> 18
<!-- Start of picture text --> Stunting gap<br>40%<br>35%<br>30%<br>25%<br>20%<br>15%<br>10%<br>5%<br>0%<br>1995 2000 2005 2010<br>East Asia and Pacific Europe and Central Asia<br>Latin America & Carribean Middle East and North Africa<br>South Asia Sub‐Saharan Africa<br><!-- End of picture text --> _<mark>Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS and MICS. Results need to be interpreted with caution as the population coverage for some regions and years are below 50%.</mark>_ A comparison of malnutrition across regions suggests that the stunting gap is telling a slightly different story from the stunting headcount for some regions. While the trends of the headcount and gap are the same for each particular region, the ranks of some regions differ depending on the type of measurement being used, i.e. headcount or gap rates. For example, according to the headcount measures in 2005 and 2010, EAP has a greater level of malnutrition than MNA. In contrast, according to the gap measures for the same period, MNA has a greater level of malnutrition than EAP.

Similarly, according to the headcount measures, MNA and LAC have similar headcount rates in 2005, about 24% each, which is significantly higher than that of ECA (17%). However, in terms of the gap measure, MNA has a significantly higher gap rate (13%) than LAC (10%), and LAC is actually closer to ECA (8%). Similarly, for 2010, the headcount measure suggests a sizeable difference between LAC (19%) and ECA (15%). However, the gap measures suggest that both are 19
around 7 percent. This shows the importance of the gap measure, providing us further insight in addition to the headcount measures.

# _4.4 Income-group Analysis_

Next we conduct our analysis by different income groups as defined by the World Bank: low income, lower-middle income, and upper-middle income. The results are presented in Figure 4. Similar to our regional analysis, we find that the trend of the stunting gap can reveal a different story than the trend of the stunting headcount. Specifically, the stunting headcount of lowermiddle-income countries as a whole was slightly lower than that of low-income countries until sometime between 2000 and 2005. However, the trend of the stunting gap of lower-middle-income countries during this period of time was higher than that of low-income countries. In the reference year of 2000, the difference amounted to 2 percentage points.

Figure 4: Trends of stunting headcount and gap by income groups <!-- Start of picture text --> Stunting headcount<br>60%<br>50%<br>40%<br>30%<br>20%<br>10%<br>0%<br>1995 2000 2005 2010<br>Low income Lower middle income Upper middle income<br><!-- End of picture text --> 20
<!-- Start of picture text --> Stunting gap<br>35%<br>30%<br>25%<br>20%<br>15%<br>10%<br>5%<br>0%<br>1995 2000 2005 2010<br>Low income Lower middle income Upper middle income<br><!-- End of picture text --> _<mark>Source: Authors’ calculations using DHS and MICS. Results need to be interpreted with caution as the population coverage for some regions and years are below 50%.</mark>_

# _4.5 Population Coverage_

Next, we examine the population coverage in our analysis, i.e. the percentage of population in low- and middle-income countries that we cover through the nationally representative surveys in our analysis in each of the time ranges. We use data from WHO on the number of children below the age of 5 for all low- and middle-income countries in five-year intervals: 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010. Thus, for each of survey year for a particular country, we use the closest population data available from WHO. Hence, we use population data from: 1995 for surveys conducted in years 1993-1997; 2000 for surveys in years 1998-2002; 2005 for surveys in years 2003-2007; and 2010 for surveys in years 2008-2012.

Table 3: Percentage of low and middle income country population covered in the malnutrition aggregations

|Years|Percentage of population|
|---|---|
|1993-1997|18%|

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|1998-2002|47%|
|---|---|
|2003-2007|57%|
|2008-2012|38%|

Table 3 presents the population coverage for each five-year time period. We find that for the initial surveys from 1993 to 1997, the population coverage of low- and middle-income countries in our analysis was 18%. However, we see population coverage increase over the years to 47%, 57%, and 38% for the periods 1998-2002, 2003-2007, and 2008-2012, respectively. This shows that population coverage improved, likely because the number of surveys across countries increased over the years. While we may not have sufficient data for precise aggregation at this point, as more surveys are conducted in the future, we will have greater population coverage and greater precision in future analysis.

<u>Table 4: Percentage of regional population covered in the malnutrition aggregations</u>

|Region:|1995|2000|2005|2010|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|East Asia and Pacific|0%|1%|5%|7%|
|Europe and Central Asia|40%|31%|57%|16%|
|Latin America & Caribbean|54%|22%|19%|20%|
|MENA|26%|26%|57%|43%|
|South Asia|12%|85%|85%|26%|
|Africa|32%|65%|86%|86%|

Similarly, in Table 4 we present the population coverage for the regional aggregations in Figure 3. As we can see, while South Asia and Africa are well-represented in several of the timewindows, the coverage for the other regions are generally well below 50%. This demonstrates that the regional coverage estimates need to be interpreted with caution. However, it is important to note that the purpose of this exercise is not to create regional aggregates with sufficient coverage.

It is instead to show how these new indicators and new estimates can be used for analysis.

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# **5. Conclusions**

This paper develops a new method of measuring malnutrition across the world. The current key measures of malnutrition, such as stunting and wasting, are based on headcount measures, i.e. the proportion of children who are suffering from malnutrition. However, a potential drawback of these headcount measures is that they do not inform us about the depth and severity of malnutrition. It is possible that a country with a low headcount rate for a particular malnutrition measure also has a high severity of malnutrition compared to countries with a similar headcount rate, and vice versa. Therefore, it is important to develop a measure of the severity of malnutrition.

To develop a measure of the severity of malnutrition, this study adopts a particular technique used in the development literature, specifically the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (1984) class of poverty indicators, in the context of child malnutrition. Employing this new technique, we develop eight new measures of malnutrition in this study: (i) stunting gap, (ii) stunting gap squared, (iii) wasting gap, (iv) wasting gap squared, (v) overweight gap, (vi) overweight gap squared, (vii) underweight gap, and (viii) underweight gap squared. We employ over 20 years of malnutrition data from 95 developing countries to calculate these measures of severity.

Due to space limitations, this paper presents the results on stunting only, although all results have been calculated. It is of our interest to explore all our results in our future studies to understand if the additional information provided by the gap and gap squared measures is more useful for one malnutrition indicator than for another.

The malnutrition gap as a new measure enables us to monitor the development progress of those furthest away from the reference line, serving the principle of SDGs. Employing the new measures, we are also able to identify countries that have low levels of headcount for a malnutrition 23
measure, but have comparatively high severity of malnutrition according to the gap measures, and vice versa. This allows us to identify numerous cases where headcount measures may be providing a misleading description of a certain country’s malnutrition status. Additionally, through regional and income-group analysis, we identify differences in the headcount and gap measurements. This study is extremely important from a policy perspective because comparing countries with similar headcount measures could hide important differences in the depth of malnutrition as reflected by differences in the malnutrition gap.

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