Malnutritional Status of Children Under Five from Flood Impacted Areas of Bangladesh

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 15. Global Health

Abstract

Despite significant progress in treating mental and physical health illnesses, malnutrition remains a significant challenge with serious impact on global public health. While everyone can be affected by malnutrition, children are the most vulnerable. A majority of malnourished children are concentrated in two regions: sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. While much research has focused on the social and economic factors of malnutrition, there remains much to uncover regarding the impact of environmental factors (e.g., flooding) on malnutrition. This current project studies the prevalence of malnutrition in Bangladesh in flood impacted areas of Bangladesh. The findings indicate that two of three important indicators of malnutrition, stunting and wasting, are not associated with living in flood impacted areas. However, the third indicator of malnutrition, underweight, shows higher levels in flood impacted areas compared to areas not flood-impacted, controlling for various socio-demographic variables at both individual and district level. Implications center on a discussion of policies that could mitigate the impact of flooding on malnutrition.

Authors

• Muhammad Saifuddin, Louisiana State University

• Kevin T. Smiley, Louisiana State University