Can Small-Scale Agricultural Production Improve Children's Health? Examining Stunting Vulnerability among Very Young Children in Mali, West Africa

Abstract

Stunting affects an individual's educational and wage-earning potential and can even affect the next generation of children. Most research of childhood stunting focuses on the determinants and correlates that lead to stunting—through nutritional or early infant experiences, with one potential solution to stunting being an increased supply of locally produced food. This research examines the interplay of community-level cropped area as a factor relating to childhood stunting. We use the most recently collected Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for Mali, very high resolution remotely sensed imagery, and other remotely sensed data relating to geophysical characteristics to examine the impact of local cultivation on children's health. We focus on evaluating the environmental, community, household, and individual characteristics of the children who report healthy anthropometrics despite the presence of specific stunting risk factors. In adopting this approach to studies of children's health we can shed light on how small-scale agricultural production impacts childhood stunting among at-risk children.

发育迟缓影响着个人的教育与收入潜能, 甚至可能影响下一世代的儿童。针对儿时发育迟缓的研究, 多数聚焦其决定因素, 并将导致发育迟缓之因——透过营养或早期幼儿经验——与增加在地生产的粮食供给这项解决发育迟缓的可能方案相互连结。本研究检视社区层级耕作区域的互动, 作为与儿童发育迟缓相关的因素。我们运用马利最近期搜集的人口与健康调查（DHS）数据, 相当高解析度的遥测影像, 以及与空间物理特徵有关的其它遥测数据, 检视在地耕作对儿童健康的影响。我们聚焦评估儘管存在着特定发展迟缓风险因素, 但仍被通报为人体测量健康的儿童的环境、社区、家户与个人特徵。我们透过採用此般研究儿童健康的方法, 得以对微观尺度农业生产如何影响身处风险的孩童的儿时发育迟缓提出洞见。

El retraso en el crecimiento afecta el potencial educativo y salarial de un individuo y puede incluso afectar a la siguiente generación de niños. La mayor parte de la investigación sobre retraso en el crecimiento infantil se concentra en los determinantes y factores relacionados que conducen a retrasar el desarrollo físico—a través de condiciones nutricionales o experiencias de la infancia temprana, con una potencial solución a este problema representada en un mayor suministro de alimentos producidos localmente. Esta investigación examina a nivel de comunidad la interacción en el área sembrada como un factor relacionado con el retraso en el crecimiento infantil. Usamos datos del Estudio Demográfico y de Salubridad (DHS) sobre Malí, completado hace poco tiempo, imágenes de percepción remota de muy alta resolución y otros datos de sensores remotos, relacionados con características geográficas físicas, para examinar el impacto de la agricultura local sobre la salud de los niños. Nos concentramos en la evaluación de las características ambientales, comunitarias, familiares e individuales de los niños, que registran una antropometría saludable a pesar de la presencia de factores riesgosos específicos de retraso en el crecimiento. Adoptando este enfoque para el estudio de la salud infantil, podemos hacer luz sobre el modo como la producción agrícola a pequeña escala impacta con retraso en el crecimiento infantil entre los niños en riesgo.

Key Words:

• agriculture
• children's health
• development
• food insecurity
• stunting

关键词：:

• 农业
• 儿童健康
• 发展
• 粮食不安全
• 发育迟缓。

Palabras clave:

• agricultura
• salud de los niños
• desarrollo
• inseguridad alimentaria
• retraso en el crecimiento

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the helpful suggestions and comments of the editor and the anonymous reviewers.

Funding

This research was funded, in part, by NASA Grant NNX13AC67G. Kathryn Grace and Greg Husak were funded, in part, by USGS grant G14AC00042. Kathryn Grace was also partially supported by NASA Grant NNX13AC67G. Nicholas Nagle's effort was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grants SES-1132008 and BCS-0961294.

Notes

1. In this case, care is the provision in the household and the community of time, attention, and support to meet the physical, mental, and social needs of the child (International Conference on Nutrition 1992).

2. Because of data limitations, we estimate food production with area under cultivation or cropped area. Because cultivated area provides an indication of food production, we use the terms interchangeably in the text. More details on variable construction are provided in the data and methods sections.

3. The four pillars of food insecurity provide a theoretical framework for analysis of the causes of food insecurity. Over time these pillars have been adapted and modified to reflect improved research and policy efforts relating to food insecurity. These pillars have been extensively explored in academic and policy literature and are well explained as a conceptual framework in work by Smith and Haddad (2000).

4. We define resilience as “the individual's predisposition to resist the potential negative consequences of the risk and develop adequately” (Engle, Castle, and Menon 1996, 2). In this case being healthy or nonstunted is considered developing adequately.

5. The term positive deviance is used to describe this analytic approach (Zeitlen 1991). A positive deviance model examines how and why some at-risk individuals ultimately come to healthy outcomes. Because it could have important policy relevance as it aids in developing strategies that individuals or families might already implement, this approach has been used in various types of health research.

6. There is very little research on how food is shared among community members in rural West Africa. Therefore, this assumption is based on anecdotal evidence including conversations with Malians and observations of the first author in other West African communities.

7. NDVI is a commonly used measure within remote sensing to measure the amount of vegetation growth (see Tucker 1979). NDVI captures the difference in reflectance of a pixel in near-infrared and red spectra. This metric evaluates the vegetation coverage within a pixel and has also been used to estimate crop production, land use and land cover, biomass, and numerous other applications (see Brown et al. 2014; Grace, Husak, and Bogle 2014). We use MODIS-based NDVI data based on the NASA Terra satellite (Justice et al. 1998; Huete et al. 2002).

8. Technically the variable is partner's education. We assume that the mother's partner is the father of the child.

9. The wealth index is constructed by MEASURE, the organization responsible for collection, processing, and managing the DHS data. MEASURE uses principal components analysis to evaluate and rank households based on assets and characteristics. Water source, television ownership, radio ownership, toilet facilities, and other factors are included (see Rutstein and Johnson, and ORC Macro MEASURE 2004).

10. The term wealthy is used here in a comparative sense and is based on the DHS classification. In most cases it would be inappropriate to assume that these households are wealthy in terms of finances or assets at a global level. Rather, the characterization of wealthy distinguishes the households that have a large number of assets compared to other Malian households.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Grace

KATHRYN GRACE is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research highlights the role of context in various aspects related to maternal and child health with a particular focus on food insecurity and health issues in the Global South.

Nicholas N. Nagle

NICHOLAS N. NAGLE is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN 37996. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the production of small area population data and geospatial data fusion.

Greg Husak

GREG HUSAK is the co-director of the Climate Hazards Group in the Geography Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060. E-mail: [email protected]. His research focuses on improving the identification and monitoring of conditions leading to food insecurity in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.