Maternal height and child health and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa : Decomposition and heterogeneity

Summary, in English

Maternal height is associated with mortality and anthropometry in low-and-middle-income countries. This paper explored residual associations and potential underlying mechanisms linking maternal height to several child outcomes using regression models with neighborhood and half-sibling fixed effects and Gelbach decomposition on 108 Demographic and Health Surveys from 37 sub-Saharan African countries. When adjusting for time of birth, twinning, sex, and survey, a single z-score (6.5 cm) increase in mother's height was associated with a 22% reduction in the average deficit in height-for-age among children under five (according to the WHO 2006 growth standard), 16% lower neonatal mortality (age

• Author: Omar Karlsson; Martin Dribe
• Department/s: Centre for Economic Demography; Department of Economic History
• Publishing year: 2022-11-23
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Social Science & Medicine
• Volume: 315
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115480
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Topic: Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
• Keywords: Sub-Saharan Africa; Maternal height; School attendance; Neonatal mortality; Postneonatal mortality; Gelbach decomposition
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1873-5347