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theses

Undernutrition is the leading cause of death among children under the age of five in developing countries. The long- and short-term adverse effects of undernutrition are well-documented in the current scientific literature. Often embedded in poverty, malnutrition has been regarded not only as a public health issue, but also as a medical, social, political and economic problem where maternal education repeatedly emerges as the most important determinant factor. Strengthened by more recent evidence, there has been an ever increasing amount of literature questioning the association between maternal education and child health outcomes. The current study used data from Bolivia’s 2008, Haiti’s 2005-06 and Honduras’s 2005-06 Demographic and Health Survey to explore mechanisms that underlie the association between maternal education and child health status. To evaluate this relationship three anthropometric indicators were used to measure children nutritional status: low birth weight, low weight-for-height (wasting) and low height-for-age (stunting). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the effect of maternal education, socioeconomic and household iii environmental factors on the risk for a child to be born with a low birth weight, or being classified as wasted or stunted. Results of this study showed that the maternal education is inversely associated with stunting, but not with low birth weight or wasting. Concurrently, maternal education statistical significance on stunting is strongly attenuated when socioeconomic and/or home environmental factors were included in the models. These results suggest that among the three Latin American countries studied, the degree of influence of maternal education on child health outcomes was altered by the introduction of varying socio-economic and home environmental factors. Our findings propose that child nutritional status is dependent on the particular interplay of several socioeconomic and household environmental factors, where maternal education is a significant predictor but not the key determinant. Furthermore, can be inferred that in order to improve child health status is required that maternal education be accompanied by socio-economic and home environmental development.

ETD_6159

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

by Eder da Silva Menezes

doi:10.7282/T3CC12DW

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.