The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #39499

Sarah Andrea Burgard, MA, Departments of Sociology and Epidemiology, University of California, Los Angeles, 264 Haines Hall, 375 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551, (310) 899-1176, sburgard@ucla.edu

Height deficits in children are indirect indicators of exposure to undernutrition in infancy and early childhood. Such exposure to undernutrition can have adverse effects on children's cognitive and behavioral development (Mendez and Adair 1999). The present study examines the possible association of racial inequality with child stunting (an extreme deficit in height-for-age) in South Africa and Brazil, two multiracial societies with very different histories of race-related social and legal institutions. Using household survey data from the mid 1990s, supplemented with aggregate measures of community level characteristics drawn from the censuses of South Africa and Brazil, I show, via logistic regression models of child stunting based on the generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach of Liang and Zeger (1986), that in both countries, racial inequality in child height is determined largely by differences in average levels of socioeconomic resources and in demographic characteristics of the household. However, in South Africa, even after controlling for household and community characteristics, the statistically significant odds ratios for stunting were greater for nonwhites, as compared with their white counterparts. These findings implicate racial inequality as an important risk indicator of child stunting. Further exploration into the mechanisms by which institutionalized racial discrimination exerts its effects is needed in order to understand how nonwhite disadvantage in child health can be reduced.

Learning Objectives:

• • Identify, describe, and compare racial differences in child stunting in South Africa and Brazil
  • Describe the influence of child, household, and community level variables on racial differences in child stunting
  • to discuss the potential efficacy of various measures in reducing racial disparity in child stunting in each country

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.