141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Online Program

287036
Climate change, crop production and child malnutrition in Ethiopia; 1996-2004: A panel data analysis


Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 1:10 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Seifu Gebereyesus, School of Public health, college of health sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Introduction: Ethiopia is a developing country which experienced repeated attack of drought since the 9th century leading in most of the incidents to food shortages and subsequently to famine. The impact of climate change is reported to be greatest in many regions of developing countries, such as Ethiopia, which are largely dependent on rain fed agriculture and labour intensive agricultural production. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the effect of climate change related changes in precipitation (rainfall) and per capita crop availability on child malnutrition; and further analyze the variations in effects across different agro ecological zones of Ethiopia.

Methods: We used repeated cross sectional time-series design and applied panel data analysis method. We assembled zonal level crop productions (cereals and oil seeds) and livestock, monthly rainfall data and stunting and underweight in children < 5 years of age. Results: The data set contains 170 complete records. Stunting is found to be negatively correlated with growing season rainfall as well as with the past values of the season's rainfall. For a given zone, as rainfall varies over time by one millimeter, moderate stunting decreased by 0.006 percent. A nonlinear relationship among rainfall, lagged values of rainfall and stunting was found in highland areas of Ethiopia. Moreover, for a given zone, for each millimeter change in as lagged rainfall varies over time by one millimeter moderate underweight decreases by 0.015 percent.

Conclusions: The results of the study demonstrate that rainfall has a significant effect on child under weight and stunting. The magnitude and direction of the effect of rainfall varies among the different ecologies. Additionally, we found that sometimes past values and quadratic terms of rainfall rather than the linear forms as well as current rainfall were found to be significant predictors for child underweight and stunting

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology

Learning Objectives:
Analyze the effect of climate change related alteration in rainfall on child malnutrition and further demonstrate the difference in effects across different agro-ecological zones of Ethiopia.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a Public health professional working in Addis Ababa University (AAU) in Ethiopia. I did masters in Public health from AAU and another Master degree in Human nutrition from Gent University, Belgium. Currently I am doing a PhD in Public health at University of Beregen, Norway. I have experience presenting research papers at national and international conferences.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4210.0: Impacts of Climate Change: Utilizing Novel Methods and Techniques to Understand Long-term Effects