POEN2021

Data used in the analysis come from public sources. The primary source is a series of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS; www.measuredhs.com) conducted between 2003 and 2016 across 47 countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Each country provides between one and three survey years in the timespan covered. Each DHS is a nationally representative household survey and includes anthropometric data, information on household health, sanitation, and demographic conditions, and a community-level measure of altitude. The DHS surveys provide the primary data on child growth and child and household characteristics. DHS data are typically collected by trained enumerators under the supervision of a relevant government ministry, such as the Ministry of Health or Bureau of Statistics. Surveys are comprehensive and nationally representative household surveys focusing on men aged 15-59, women aged 15-59 and children under age five. Most DHS samples are selected using a stratified two-stage cluster design and provide key health measurements and indicators across relevant geographic and political zones. DHS data are georeferenced, but to protect confidentiality of respondents, data from the same enumeration area are aggregated to a single point and the coordinate is masked using a displacement process. Urban clusters are displaced up to two kilometers and rural clusters are displaced up to five kilometers, with a randomly-selected 1% of rural clusters displaced up to 10 kilometers. The dataset includes non-DHS data corresponding to rainfall, temperature, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), length of growing period, local population density, household electrification, and average intensity of nighttime light radiation. These variables are taken from Geographic Information System`s (GIS) sources and compiled as part of the Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (ARENA) project (https://www.ifpri.org/project/advancing-research-nutrition-and-agriculture-arena) conducted at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). GIS data were merged with the DHS datasets in a way that assures the closest possible spatial and temporal overlap with the DHS.