Improving Child Health in Malawi: Wealth, Education, and Infrastructure
Abstract
This paper investigates the roles of maternal education, household wealth, and community infrastructure in determining child nutrition outcomes in Malawi using data from the fifth Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS5) conducted in 2019-2020. Employing multilevel linear mixed models to account for the hierarchical structure of the data, the study analyses standardized z-scores for height-for-age (HAZ), weight-for-age (WAZ), and weight-for-height (WHZ) as indicators of stunting, underweight, and wasting, respectively. The findings reveal that household wealth is a strong positive predictor across all nutrition measures, while recent child illness consistently exacerbates malnutrition. Male children are more vulnerable to stunting, and a non-linear age effect shows worsening nutrition up to a critical point before marginal improvement. Maternal education shows positive but insignificant associations, supporting a threshold effect where benefits emerge only at secondary levels or higher. Community factors, such as access to ADMARC markets and certain water sources, exhibit weak positive links, highlighting potential complementarities with household resources. These results underscore the need for targeted policies to enhance wealth, reduce
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