Impacts of forests on children’s diet in rural areas across 27 developing countries

Rasolofoson, Ranaivo; Hanauer, Merlin M.; Pappinen, Ari; Fisher, Brendan; Ricketts, Taylor H.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat2853

Cited by 67 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(80 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Dietary diversity is another underlying determinant of undernutrition affected by forests Galway et al, 2018;Rasolofoson et al, 2018;Rasmussen et al, in press). In a study across 27 low-and middle-income countries, Rasolofoson et al (2018) estimate that exposure to forest leads to at least 25% greater dietary diversity in children exposed to forest than non-exposed children. Rasmussen et al (in press) indicate, in a study across five African countries, that forest configuration across landscapes, not just forest coverage, influences dietary diversity.…”

Section: Underlying Determinants Of Undernutrition Addressed By Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More diverse diets are more likely to provide adequate levels of micronutrients (Moursi et al, 2008;Zhao et al, 2017), which can shield children against infectious diseases. In particular, through its role in the immune system, vitamin A-the consumption of which is positively affected by exposure to forest (Johnson et al, 2013;Rasolofoson et al, 2018)-decreases susceptibility to diarrheal disease (Semba, 1999;Villamor and Fawzi, 2005) and thus lowers the probability of stunting (Checkley et al, 2008).…”

Section: Underlying Determinants Of Undernutrition Addressed By Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We defined exposure to forest following and using the same data as Rasolofoson et al (2018). Our forest data are from the MODIS Vegetation Continuous Field products at 250 m spatial resolution (DiMiceli et al, 2011).…”

Section: Exposure To Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We defined children not exposed to forests as those living farther than 8 km from of the nearest forest edge. The criteria for the definitions of exposure and nonexposure to forests are based on the average distance forest people in low-and middle-income countries walk to come to the closest forest to collect forest products, foraging distance of pollinators (a mechanism through which forests affect nutrition), and the uncertainty associated with the locations of communities in our data (see full details and data description in Materials and Methods of Rasolofoson et al, 2018). In fact, the locations of communities in DHS were randomly displaced up to 5 km to protect anonymity of survey respondents.…”

Section: Exposure To Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Forests are often located in marginal lands with low agricultural potential, far from infrastructure (e.g., roads, markets), and with high poverty (Sunderlin et al, 2005). These forest related characteristics are not favorable for nutrition (Rasolofoson et al, 2018). Children exposed to forest are therefore likely to have characteristics less favorable for nutrition than children not exposed to forest (Rasolofoson et al, 2018)-as generally confirmed in our data ( Table 1).…”

Section: Identification Of the Effect Of Forests On Prevalence Of Stumentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Forest Conservation: A Potential Nutrition-Sensitive Intervention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Rasolofoson

Ricketts

Jacob

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Childhood undernutrition yearly kills 3.1 million children worldwide. For those who survive early life undernutrition, it can cause motor and cognitive development problems that translate into poor educational performance and limited work productivity later in life. It has been suggested that nutrition-specific interventions (e.g., micronutrient supplementation) that directly address the immediate determinants of undernutrition (e.g., nutrient intake) need to be complemented by nutrition-sensitive interventions that more broadly address the underlying determinants of undernutrition (e.g., food insecurity). Here, we argue that forest conservation represents a potentially important but overlooked nutrition-sensitive intervention. Forests can address a number of underlying determinants of undernutrition, including the supply of forest food products, income, habitat for pollinators, women's time allocation, diarrheal disease, and dietary diversity. We examine the effects of forests on stunting-a debilitating outcome of undernutrition-using a database of household surveys and environmental variables across 25 low-and middle-income countries. Our result indicates that exposure to forest significantly reduces child stunting (at least 7.11% points average reduction). The average magnitude of the reduction is at least near the median of the impacts of other known nutrition interventions. Forest conservation interventions typically cover large areas and are often implemented where people are vulnerable, and thus could be used to reach a large number of the world's undernourished communities that may have difficult access Rasolofoson et al. Forest Conservation: Potentially Nutrition-Sensitive to traditional nutrition programs. Forest conservation is therefore a potentially effective nutrition-sensitive intervention. Efforts are needed to integrate specific nutrition goals and actions into forest conservation interventions in order to unleash their potential to deliver nutritional benefits.

show abstract

Section: Underlying Determinants Of Undernutrition Addressed By Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Underlying Determinants Of Undernutrition Addressed By Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Exposure To Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Exposure To Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Identification Of the Effect Of Forests On Prevalence Of Stumentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Forest Conservation: A Potential Nutrition-Sensitive Intervention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Rasolofoson

Ricketts

Jacob

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Predicting micronutrient deficiency with publicly available satellite data

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Micronutrient deficiency (MND), which is a form of malnutrition that can have serious health consequences, is difficult to diagnose in early stages without blood draws, which are expensive and time-consuming to collect and process. It is even more difficult at a public health scale seeking to identify regions at higher risk of MND. To provide data more widely and frequently, we propose an accurate, scalable, low-cost, and interpretable regional-level MND prediction system. Specifically, our work is the first to use satellite data, such as forest cover, weather, and presence of water, to predict deficiency of micronutrients such as iron, Vitamin B12, and Vitamin A, directly from their biomarkers. We use real-world, ground truth biomarker data collected from four different regions across Madagascar for training, and demonstrate that satellite data are viable for predicting regional-level MND, surprisingly exceeding the performance of baseline predictions based only on survey responses. Our method could be broadly applied to other countries where satellite data are available, and potentially create high societal impact if these predictions are used by policy makers, public health officials, or healthcare providers.

show abstract

Food for thought: The underutilized potential of tropical tree‐sourced foods for 21st century sustainable food systems

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Impacts of forests on children’s diet in rural areas across 27 developing countries

Abstract: Nearby forests improve children’ diets in developing countries, and access to capital enhances the effect.

Cited by 67 publications

References 52 publications

Forest Conservation: A Potential Nutrition-Sensitive Intervention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Forest Conservation: A Potential Nutrition-Sensitive Intervention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Predicting micronutrient deficiency with publicly available satellite data

Food for thought: The underutilized potential of tropical tree‐sourced foods for 21st century sustainable food systems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About