Poverty and malnutrition in Cameroon

Abstract

Over the past decades, child malnutrition has persisted at high rates in many developing countries including Cameroon. This research attempts to evaluate the levels and characteristics of the malnutrition affecting children in Cameroon by using the anthropometrics data gathered during the 1998 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) in the country. The research also uses the 1998 DHS to highlight the main factors affecting child malnutrition, by estimating a reduced form nutritional status function which includes among others children's characteristics, those of their mothers, and the environment as independent variables. Child malnutrition is expressed in terms of Z-score height-for-age, Z-score weight-for-height, and the Z-score weight-for-age. Some policy implications are derived from the results of the study.

African Journal of Economic Policy Vol. 11(2) 2004: 93-134