Elucidating the sustained decline in under‐three child linear growth faltering in Nepal, 1996-2016

Childhood linear growth faltering remains a major public health concern in Nepal. Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, Nepal sustained one of the most rapid reductions in the prevalence of stunting worldwide. First, our study analysed the trends in height-for-age z-score (HAZ), stunting prevalence, and available nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific determinants of linear growth faltering in under-three children across Nepal's Family Health Survey 1996 and Nepal's Demographic and Health Surveys 2001, 2006, 2001, and 2016. Second, we constructed pooled multivariable linear regression models and decomposed the contributions of our time-variant determinants on the predicted changes in HAZ and stunting over the past two decades. Our findings indicate substantial improvements in HAZ (38.5%) and reductions in stunting (-42.6%) and severe stunting prevalence (-63.9%) in Nepalese children aged 0-35 months. We also report that the increment in HAZ, across the 1996-2016 period, was significantly associated (confounder-adjustedp< .05) with household asset index, maternal and paternal years of education, maternal body mass index and height, basic child vaccinations, preceding birth interval, childbirth in a medical facility, and prenatal doctor visits. Furthermore, our quantitative decomposition of HAZ identified advances in utilisation of health care and related services (31.7% of predicted change), household wealth accumulation (25%), parental education (21.7%), and maternal nutrition (8.3%) as key drivers of the long-term and sustained progress against child linear growth deficits. Our research reiterates the multifactorial nature of chronic child undernutrition and the need for coherent multisectoral nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific strategies at national scale to further improve linear growth in Nepal

Impacts of environmental change on agroecosystems and livelihoods in Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. To understand local perceptions of the impacts of environmental change in two mountain districts of Nepal — Myagdi and Mustang — between 2010 and 2014, a survey, focus groups, town hall meetings, and extensive consultation with local stakeholders were conducted, supplemented by analyses of soil, rainfall, and temperature data. Mountain people in Nepal shared their perceptions of environmental change in their everyday lives, including agricultural practices and tourism activities. While ordinary individuals welcome the construction of new roads, elites still prefer to maintain trails and the status quo. People are concerned about the introduction of mosquitoes, increases in insect pests and plant pathogens, and other vectors along with roads. Snowfall has decreased and rainfall has been unpredictable. Mean minimum winter temperatures have increased and the mountains are experiencing shorter winters and less snow accumulation, which threaten the livelihoods of people that depend on fresh water. While people with means are replacing their traditional homes with modern homes, that is beyond reach for average Mustangi citizens. Expansion and diversification of agriculture, adoption of sound soil management techniques in Marpha village of Mustang and Shikha village of Myagdi, and growing forest cover in Shikha are some indicators of enhanced community managed practices. The coping strategies and indigenous practices adopted by local people in the region against hardship and environmental changes could serve as examples in similar mountain settings elsewhere

Factors Influencing Food Insecurity in Nepal

Nepal has been persistently encountering food insecurity and under-nutrition. It is therefore utmost important to determine the factors responsible for influencing food insecurity in Nepal. This study examines the factors determining food insecurity in Nepal applying binary logistic models for food poverty, household with inadequate food consumption and poor dietary diversity using data from Nepal Living Standard Survey 2010/11. Food security was determined to be strongly associated with education level and age of household head, household with higher female education level, larger farm size with higher ratio of irrigated land, better access to markets, roads and cooperatives, better household assets and remittance recipient households. Food insecure is relatively more prevalent in rural areas with higher dependent on rain-fed agriculture, higher dependency ratio and larger family size. Improving both physical and economic access to foods, together with investment in education and agriculture could help to reduce food insecurity and hunger from Nepal

Determinants of Per Capita Food Expenditure to Assess Food Security Status of Nepal

Food security is the global issue as the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) has explicitly considered zero hunger in the Goal 2. Nonetheless, in the recent years, the number of hunger population is in constant rise. Therefore, the paper attempts to estimate the determinants of the per capita food expenditure from the household expenditure. The data of National Living Standard Survey 2010/11 by the Central Bureau of Statistics Nepal has been used for the study. The multiple regression analysis has been performed. The per capita food expenditure has been used as the dependent variable. The model was found significant and the R-squared value was found 0.77. All the explanatory variables – except gender and education level (completed grade 5-7), were found significant. The number of households, area related variables urban rural and few development regions were found negatively associated with the per capita food expenditure

Changes in the Ecological Parameters of Mixed Forests of Sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn.) Are a Function of Distance from the Human Settlements

Forests in Nepal are extremely important for supporting the livelihood of millions of people who collect forest products for their subsistence use and partly for income generation. Such inherent dependence is expected to cause disturbance in the forest ecosystem. We investigated changes in the structural assemblages caused by the interaction between anthropogenic disturbances and forest management activities in the mixed forests of Sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn.) of Terai, Central Nepal. We evaluated three buffer zone community forests (BZCFs), namely, Radha Krishna, Musharni Mai, and Janajagaran of Parsa Wildlife Reserve (PWR); the forest inside PWR was taken as a control. A transect of 2 km length was laid in each forest, and six plots, each of 1 ha size, were established at a successive interval of 300 m along the edge to the interior of the forests to count and record the diameter at breast height (DBH) of the studied plants. We observed that the species diversity increased linearly (p < 0.05) towards the forest interior in the BZCFs. Species other than S. robusta had significantly higher (p < 0.05) dominance and Importance Value Indices in the interior sites. We did not observe such trends in the control forest. Multivariate analysis showed that the sites of BZCFs had higher structural dissimilarity, but the control forest sites were closer to each other in composition. The forest sites near the settlements had undergone biotic homogenization (S. robusta mixed forest changed to S. robusta forest) due to the interaction between anthropogenic disturbances and forest management activities. On the basis of vegetation density, the edges of BZCFs appeared to be protected, but on the basis of diversity failed to do so. Future management strategies should be directed towards enhancing the diversity, heterogeneity, and forest quality, especially near the forest edges