Child Health and Development
Child mortality and undernutrition have decreased dramatically in the past 20 years. However, despite this overall decline, child mortality and undernutrition remain unacceptably high, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where 1 out of 9 children die before age five. Hence, improving children’s health is one of the top priorities for governments in many countries highlighted by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular SDG 2 (zero Hunger) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being).
The overall objective of this project is a better understanding of the determinants of child health in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) and of within-country variations in child health, with a particular focus on countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
For this project, we use multiple large-scale household survey datasets across LMICs and over time, including detailed information on child health and on household and individual socio-economic and demographic characteristics as well as remote-sensed data such as information on rainfall and temperature to analyze socioeconomic, environmental, and spatial patterns associated with child health by applying quantitative estimation techniques.
Researchers: Kenneth Harttgen
Publications
Seiler, J., Wetscher, M., Harttgen, K. et al., 2025, "external page High-resolution spatial prediction of anemia risk among children aged 6 to 59 months in low- and middle-income countries", Communications Medicine, 5.
Durizzo, K., Harttgen, K., Tediosi, F. et al., 2023, external page "Toward mandatory health insurance in low-income countries? An analysis of claims data in Tanzania" Health Economics, Volume 31.
Büttner, N., Heemann, M., De Neve, J. et al., 2023, external page "Economic Growth and Childhood Malnutrition in Low- and Middle-Income Countries", JAMA Network Open, Volume 6.
Sato, R., Bolongaita, S., Memirie, S., et al., 2023, external page "Joint distribution of child mortality and wealth across 30 sub-Saharan African countries over 2000-2019" Journal of Global Health, Volume 13.
Moonga, G., Böse-O’Reilly, S., Berger, U., et al., 2021, Download Modelling chronic malnutrition in Zambia: A Bayesian distributional regression approach (PDF, 3.1 MB), PLoS ONE, Volume 16.
Seilera, J., Harttgen, K., Kneibc, T. and Langa, S., 2021, Download "Modelling children's anthropometric status using Bayesian distributional regression merging socio-economic and remote sensed data from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa" (PDF, 7.9 MB) Economics and Human Biology, Volume 40.
De Neve, J., Harttgen, K., Verguet, S., 2020, external page "Nationally and regionally representative analysis of 1.65 million children aged under 5 years using a child-based human development index: A multi-country cross-sectional study" PLoS Medicine, Volume 17.
Harttgen, K., Lang, S., Seiler, J., 2019, external page "Selective mortality and the anthropometric status of children in low- and middle-income countries" Economics & Biology, Volume 34.
Fink, G., Victora, C., Harttgen, K. et al., 2017, external page "Measuring Socioeconomic Inequalities With Predicted Absolute Incomes Rather Than Wealth Quintiles: A Comparative Assessment Using Child Stunting Data From National Surveys" American Journal of Public Health, Volume 107.
Vollmer, S., Bommer, C., Krishna, A. et al., 2016, external page "The association of parental education with childhood undernutrition in low- and middle-income countries: comparing the role of paternal and maternal education" International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 46.