The relationship of household assets and amenities with child health outcomes: An exploratory cross-sectional study in India 2015–2016

Abstract

Healthy development of children in India is far from ensured. Proximate determinants of poor child health outcomes are infectious diseases and undernutrition, which are linked to socioeconomic status. In low- and middle-income countries, researchers rely on wealth indices, constructed from information on households' asset ownership and amenities, to study socioeconomic disparities in child health. Some of these wealth index items can, however, directly affect the proximate determinants of child health. This paper explores the independent association of each item used to construct the Demographic and Health Surveys' wealth index with diverse child health outcomes. This cross-sectional study used nationally representative sample of 245,866 children, age 0–59 months, from the Indian National Family Health Surveys conducted in 2015–16. The study used conditional Poisson regression models as well as a range of sensitivity specifications. After controlling for socioeconomic status, health care use, maternal factors, community-level factors, and all wealth index items, the following wealth index items were the most consistently associated with child health; type of toilet facilities, water source, refrigerator, pressure cooker, type of cooking fuel, land usable for agriculture, household building material, mobile phone, and motorcycle/scooter. The association with type of toilet facilities and water source was particularly strong for mortality, showing a 16–35% and 14–28% lower mortality, respectively. Most items used to construct the Demographic and Health Surveys’ wealth index only indicate household socioeconomic status, while a few items may affect child health directly, and can be useful targets for policy intervention.

Household, dietary and healthcare factors predicting childhood stunting in Ethiopia

“…Children born from poor family were at higher risk of stunting. Our findings are in lined with previous studies (Apio et al, 2019;Beal et al, 2018;Binagwaho et al, 2020;Bogale et al, 2020;Kismul et al, 2018;Karlsson et al, 2020;Tusting et al, 2020).…”

“…Interestingly, our study also shows that households with refrigerator reduces stunting significantly. This result is inline with a previous study (Karlsson et al, 2020). This might be, refrigerators can reduce food spoilage and extend shelf life, there by improving food and nutrition security.…”

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“…Poverty is a multidimensional construct in which people experience concurrent deprivations across various health, education and standard of living indicators (Initiative et al, 2019). Impoverished households are often food insecure, lack access to essential health services, and are unable to invest in education (Galobardes et al, 2007;Karlsson et al, 2020;Victora et al, 2003). In turn, these deprivations are risk factor for adverse child health outcomes.…”

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