ArticleBMC public health2018
Associations between birth registration and early child growth and development: evidence from 31 low- and middle-income countries.
Article in BMC public health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Addressing the Evidence Gap in the Economic and Social Benefits of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems: A Systematic Review.Public health reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Health facilities as a lever for birth registration in low- and middle-income countries: a realist review.Health policy and planning · 2026Review
- Mapping the landscape of congenital anomaly registries worldwide: what role do health and economic factors play?Journal of global health · 2026Article
- Strengthening Civil Registration Through Grassroots Health Institutions in India.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Impact of Institutionalisation of Births on Health Policies and Birth Registration in India.Annals of global health · 2024Article
- Nurturing care among adolescent mothers.Journal of public health in Africa · 2023Article
- Inequities in birth registration, violent discipline, and child labour by disability status and sex: Evidence from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys in 24 countries.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Multilevel analysis of individual- and community-level determinants of birth certification of children under-5 years in Nigeria: evidence from a household survey.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Birth registration in India: Are wealth inequities decreasing?SSM - population health · 2021Article
- A Case Study in Personal Identification and Social Determinants of Health: Unregistered Births among Indigenous People in Northern Ontario.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Are inequities decreasing? Birth registration for children under five in low-income and middle-income countries, 1999-2016.BMJ global health · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLack of legal identification documents can impose major challenges for children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The aim of this study was to investigate the association between not having a birth certificate and young children's physical growth and developmental outcomes in LMICs.
methodsWe combined nationally representative data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys in 31 LMICs. For our measure of birth registration, primary caregivers reported on whether the child had a birth certificate. Early child outcome measures focused on height-for-age z-scores (HAZ), weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ), weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ), and standardized scores of the Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) for a subsample of children aged 36-59 months. We used linear regression models with country fixed effects to estimate the relationship between birth registration and child outcomes. In fully adjusted models, we controlled for a variety of child, caregiver, household, and access to child services covariates, including cluster-level fixed effects.
resultsIn the total sample, 34.7% of children aged 0-59 months did not possess a birth certificate. After controlling for covariates, not owning a birth certificate was associated with lower HAZ (β = - 0.18; 95% CI: -0.23, - 0.14), WAZ (β = - 0.10, 95% CI: -0.13, - 0.07), and ECDI z-scores (β = - 0.10; 95% CI: -0.13, - 0.07) among children aged 36-59 months.
conclusionOur findings document links between birth registration and children's early growth and development outcomes. Efforts to increase birth registration may be promising for promoting early childhood development in LMICs.
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