Nutritional status in Ghana and its determinants

Indeed, many of the policies in place since 1983 represent a major break with the previous decade. By a number of measures, this economic recovery program has been successful in turning the economy around; GNP per capita has grown every year since 1983, a sequence which is unprecedented in post-independence history. The magnitude of the decline prior to the recovery program was sufficiently large, however, that this appreciable progress is still only a partial recovery. This report presents data based on the Ghana Living Standards Survey"s first year (1987-88), which indicate that levels of malnutrition in Ghana remain relatively high compared to other African countries. The nutritional status of children is nevertheless improved compared to a variety of data covering the period 1982-86. These anthropometric measures of nutritional status show a strong regional pattern, with malnutrition increasing roughly from south to north. Econometric analysis also revealed strong effects of household composition and intergenerational effects through the mother"s height. Since this latter effect is far larger than the similar positive correlation of height-for-age and the father"s height, it is likely to indicate the influence of the womb environment more than genetics and, as such, a lagged nutritional effect. No gender bias was observed, consistent with other African evidence. Levels of chronic malnutrition (low height-for-age) but not acute malnutrition (weight-for-age) decrease as income increases, although the statistical precision of this relationship is comparatively low. There is, however, a strong effect of income on body mass indices (BMI) for adult women. The study also indicates that BMI decreases with higher parity, which was introduced into the analysis as an instrumented variable to control for individual heterogeneity and possible reverse causality. While the positive relationship between income and nutritional levels observed in this study may be deemed obvious, it is surprisingly difficult to demonstrate and often contradicted. The results, however, confirm a similar study based on Cote d"Ivoire data. Many of the long-term impacts of current economic policies, although introduced for reasons other than nutrition, will likely affect nutrition through this income relationship. A revival of Ghana"s once noteworthy educational system may also affect nutrition via income, rather than directly shifting the effectiveness of input utilization. (Author abstract)