Food security and health security : explaining the levels of nutrition in Pakistan

Most influential studies of malnutrition and public policy have focused on energy availability and consumption, tending to equate hunger with malnutrition. But recent studies have explored how other factors - notably infection and levels of maternal education - affect nutrition. Alderman and Garcia's study of nutrition levels in Pakistan shows that raising household food consumption, for example, has less impact on nutritional levels than raising a mother's education does. They found that educating mothers to at least the primary level tends to reduce the level of child stunting 16.5 percent, or roughly 10 times the impact achieved by increasing per capita income 10 percent. (The impact of education is not immediately realized; the diffusion of knowledge about good hygiene and child care associated with learning has a cumulative effect.) Alderman and Garcia found that in Pakistan, food security alone is not enough to improve children's nutritional status. There may be welfare justifications for various food policies, but in rural Pakistan, especially, it is equally important to improve health and reduce infection.Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Early Child and Children's Health,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems

THE DETERMINANTS OF FOOD CONSUMPTION AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS AMONG PRESCHOOL CHILDREN: EVIDENCE FROM THE RURAL PHILIPPINES

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The pilot food price subsidy scheme in the Philippines: its impact on income, food consumption, and nutritional status

Food relief Philippines Case studies., Food consumption Philippines Case studies., Nutrition Philippines Case studies.,

The effect of early childhood development programs on women's labor force participation and older children's schooling in Kenya

About 20,000 early childhood development centers provided day care for and prepared for primary school more than 1 million children aged three to seven (roughly 20 percent of children in that age group) in Kenya in 1995. The number of child care facilities reached 23,690 by the end of 1999. The authors analyze the effect of child care costs on households'behavior in Kenya. For households with children aged three to seven, they model household demand for mothers'participation in paid work, the participation in paid work of other household members, household demand for schooling, and household demand for child care. They find that: A) A high cost for child care discourages households from using formal child care facilities and has a negative effect on mothers'participation in market work. B) The cost of child care and the level of mothers'wages affect older children's school enrollment, but these factors affect boys'and girls'schooling differently. An increase in mothers'wages increases boys'enrollment but depresses girls'enrollment. C) Higher child care costs have no significant effect on boys'schooling but significantly decrease the number of girls in school.Children and Youth,Public Health Promotion,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Early Childhood Development,Children and Youth,Primary Education,Street Children,Early Childhood Development,Youth and Governance

Poverty, household food security, and nutrition in rural Pakistan:

The pathways from economic and social policies to improved food security and nutrition for the poor often are not well understood. Yet each day governments decide on policies that ultimately affect their well-being. How households increase their incomes, acquire food, improve health, or cope with insecurity are important concerns that need to be examined in order to devise policies to help eradicate poverty. Nearly all attempts to study these issues have used snapshot approaches those that look at one point in time. These approaches are limited in that they do not reveal anything about the actual dynamics of poverty, food security, and their consequences for nutrition and health. In this report Harold Alderman and Marito Garcia address these concerns by looking at longitudinal data for a three-year period, 1986-89, and analyzing fluctuations in incomes, consumption, savings, nutrition and health-seeking behavior of 800 households in five districts in rural Pakistan (Faisalabad and Attock in Punjab province, Badin in Sind, Dir in North-West Frontier Province, and Mastung/Kalat in Baluchistan). The report examines income sources and wage formation in rural Pakistan and investigates the level and distribution of income in poor households. It contributes to analysis of the temporal dimensions of poverty and thus adds to the literature on coping strategies of households. Although the three-year panel of data analyzed is too short to model fully the dynamics of poverty, it is sufficient to indicate the fluidity of the economic environment that households in Pakistan face. The report also traces the efficiency by which household incomes are converted to better nutritional well-being and the influence of other intervening factors such as health and education.Nutrition Pakistan., Rural poor Pakistan Nutrition., Health behavior Pakistan.,

its impact on income, food consumption, and nutritional status

PRIFPRI

Malnutrition and food insecurity projections, 2020

In 1990 a total of 780 million people out of 4 billion in the developing world are living on diets that are not sufficient to maintain a healthy life, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This implies food insecurity for every fifth person in the developing world. Insufficient food consumption is one of the primary causes of malnutrition; the other is infection and poor health. Unless explicit policies to reduce the numbers of underweight are put in place, the total number of children with protein energy malnutrition will rise, and child deaths associated with malnutrition problems will continue unabated. Increase in incomes and reduction in poverty are important, but experiences in several countries indicate that even where there is no rapid improvement in incomes, malnutrition can be reduced by explicit programs and policies that aim at improving household access to food and health services and improving child care practices such as breastfeeding and proper weaning of infants. A concerted effort to follow the examples of successful countries is needed to reduce the numbers of malnourished children in the future.Non-PRIFPRI1; 2020DG

Food subsidies in the Philippines: Preliminary results

Evidence from countries like Sri Lanka and Egypt has shown that the fiscal costs of food price subsidy programs may be high, and once introduced, their termination may be politically difficult (Gavan and Sri Chandrasekera, 1979; Alderman, von Braun, and Sakr, 1982). On the other hand, if they are carefully designed and properly targeted, their effect on food consumption and nutrition may be significant. Although a food price subsidy scheme may sometimes present the most cost-effective approach to calorie or protein deficiencies, the introduction of such a program should be based on solid evidence regarding its cost effectiveness both in absolute terms and relative to alternative programs.PRIFPRI1DG

Impact of female sources of income on food demand among rural households in the Philippines

PRIFPRI