The Impact of Civil Conflict on Child Malnutrition and Mortality, Nigeria, 2002-2013

Abstract

The new millennium brought renewed attention to improving the health of women and children. In this same period, direct deaths from conflicts have declined worldwide, but civilian deaths associated with conflicts have increased. Nigeria is among the most conflict-prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa, especially recently with the Boko Haram insurgency in the north. This paper uses two data sources, the 2013 Demographic and Health Survey for Nigeria and the Social Conflict Analysis Database, linked by geocode, to study the effect of these conflicts on child health. We show a strong association between living close to a conflict zone and acute malnutrition in Nigerian children in 2013. This is related to the severity of the conflict, measured both in terms of the number of conflict deaths and the length of time the child was exposed to conflict. The association with mortality is much less clear, with essentially no significant relationship to conflict detected using these data for the period studied. Undoubtedly civil conflict is limiting the future prospects of Nigerian children and the country's economic growth. In Nigeria conflicts in the north are expected to continue with sporadic attacks and continued damaged infrastructure. Thus, the children in Nigeria will continue to suffer the consequences documented in this study.

The impact of civil conflict on infant and child malnutrition, Nigeria, 2013

“…For example, using the conflict death measure, for urban areas, a conflict death within 1 km led to a decrease of.059 SD from the WHO norm of weight for height for the child's age. These regression results can be found in a separate document (Howell, Waidmann, Birdsall, Holla, & Jiang, 2018).…”

Conflict, Nutritional Status and Patterns of Young Child Feeding

“…These countries are characterized by being exposed to political instability, chronic emergencies and conflict. Under such conditions women and children suffer most and are at risk of deprivation from the essential food elements essential for optimal health and growth (8) . In Yemen, conflict and poverty have caused the health system to break, leaving children to suffer from food insecurity and disease (9) .…”

“…The World health organization (WHO) conducted several meetings to assess the importance of developing a guidance for countries on ending marketing of inappropriate foods and beverages for children under 36 months of age (7,8) . This resulted in the adoption of the 69th World Health Assembly meeting in May, 2016, to End the promotion of foods for infants and young children from birth to 36 months of age, thereby reinforcing the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and expanding its scope from 6 months of age to 36 months of age (8) .…”

Empirical studies of factors associated with child malnutrition: highlighting the evidence about climate and conflict shocks

“…Kinyoki et al (2016) tested lags measures of conflict during the three months prior to survey and the period from 3 to 12 months prior to the survey, finding that both variables have statistically significant associations with wasting and stunting. Howell et al (Howell et al 2018) tested yearly lagged values of conflict days and deaths in an analyses of stunting and wasting. Another approach in studies that have modelled the effects of conflict shocks on child malnutrition is cohort analysis.…”