ArticleBMJ global health2019
How socioeconomic status moderates the stunting-age relationship in low-income and middle-income countries.
Article in BMJ global health, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Systematic review to evaluate a potential association between helminth infection and physical stunting in children.Parasites & vectors · 2022Pooled it
- Cohort Profile: The Ecuadorian National Birth and Infant Nutrition cohort.International journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Do minimum acceptable diet and family caregiving mediate the associations of maternal education and household wealth with childhood stunting and wasting in Sri Lanka?Public health nutrition · 2026Article
- Sports-related factors and stunting in children under 5 years old: a cross-sectional study across 471 counties in 31 provincial regions of China.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Trends and inequalities in stunting and underweight among children aged 0-59 months in Ghana, 1993-2022.International journal for equity in health · 2025Article
- Social and economic predictors of under-five stunting in Mexico: a comprehensive approach through the XGB model.Journal of global health · 2025Article
- The global air pollution and undernutrition among children under five.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Determinants of stunting among adolescent girls in schools of Digo Tsion Town, Northwest Ethiopia: Unmatched case control study.PloS one · 2024Article
- Exploring the paradox of Muslim advantage in undernutrition among under-5 children in India: a decomposition analysis.BMC pediatrics · 2023Article
- Stunting and Its Associated Factors among Children Below 5 Years Old on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia: Evidence from the National Health and Morbidity Survey.The Malaysian journal of medical sciences : MJMS · 2023Article
- Globally elevated levels of histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation in early infancy are associated with poor growth trajectory in Bangladeshi children.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Article
- Association of Stunting with Socio-Demographic Factors and Feeding Practices among Children under Two Years in Informal Settlements in Gauteng, South Africa.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Prevalence and Correlates of Stunting among Children Aged 6-23 Months from Poor Households in Rwanda.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Robust determinants of neurocognitive development in children: evidence from the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study.Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · 2023Article
- Interlinkages between Climate Change and Food Systems: The Impact on Child Malnutrition-Narrative Review.Nutrients · 2023Review
- What explains the large disparity in child stunting in the Philippines? A decomposition analysis.Public health nutrition · 2022Article
- Wealth related inequality in women and children malnutrition in the state of Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu.BMC nutrition · 2022Article
- Age heterogeneities in child growth and its associated socio-demographic factors: a cross-sectional study in India.BMC pediatrics · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionReducing stunting is an important part of the global health agenda. Despite likely changes in risk factors as children age, determinants of stunting are typically analysed without taking into account age-related heterogeneity. We aim to fill this gap by providing an in-depth analysis of the role of socioeconomic status (SES) as a moderator for the stunting-age pattern.
methodsEpidemiological and socioeconomic data from 72 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) were used to calculate stunting-age patterns by SES quartiles, derived from an index of household assets. We further investigated how differences in age-specific stunting rates between children from rich and poor households are explained by determinants that could be modified by nutrition-specific versus nutrition-sensitive interventions.
resultsWhile stunting prevalence in the pooled sample of 72 DHS is low in children up to the age of 5 months (maximum prevalence of 17.8% (95% CI 16.4;19.3)), stunting rates in older children tend to exceed those of younger ones in the age bracket of 6-20 months. This pattern is more pronounced in the poorest than in the richest quartile, with large differences in stunting prevalence at 20 months (stunting rates: 40.7% (95% CI 39.5 to 41.8) in the full sample, 50.3% (95% CI 48.2 to 52.4) in the poorest quartile and 29.2% (95% CI 26.8 to 31.5) in the richest quartile). When adjusting for determinants related to nutrition-specific interventions only, SES-related differences decrease by up to 30.1%. Much stronger effects (up to 59.2%) occur when determinants related to nutrition-sensitive interventions are additionally included.
conclusionWhile differences between children from rich and poor households are small during the first 5 months of life, SES is an important moderator for age-specific stunting rates in older children. Determinants related to nutrition-specific interventions are not sufficient to explain these SES-related differences, which could imply that a multifactorial approach is needed to reduce age-specific stunting rates in the poorest children.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.