Economic costs of childhood stunting to the private sector in low- and middle-income countries

作者：Nadia Akseer, Hana Tasic, Michael Nnachebe Onah, Jannah Wigle, Ramraj Rajakumar, Diana Sánchez‐Hernández, Jonathan Kweku Akuoku, Robert E. Black, Bernardo Lessa Horta, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, Ritta Sabbas Shine, Kerri Wazny, Nikita Japra, Meera Shekar, John Hoddinott · 发表于：EClinicalMedicine · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101320 · 被引用次数：84 · 研究领域：Child Nutrition and Water Access、Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet、Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare

Background: Stunting during childhood has long-term consequences on human capital, including decreased physical growth, and lower educational attainment, cognition, workforce productivity and wages. Previous research has quantified the costs of stunting to national economies however beyond a few single-country datasets there has been a limited number of which have used diverse datasets and have had a dedicated focus on the private sector, which employs nearly 90% of the workforce in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We aimed to examine (i) the impact of childhood stunting on income loss of private sector workforce in LMICs; (ii) to quantify losses in sales to private firms in LMICs due to childhood stunting; and (iii) to estimate potential gains (benefit-cost ratios) if stunting levels are reduced in select high prevalence countries. Methods: This multiple-methods study engaged multi-disciplinary technical advisers, executed several literature reviews, used innovative statistical methods, and implemented health and labor economic models. We analyzed data from seven longitudinal datasets (up to 30+ years of follow-up; 1982-2016; Peru, Ethiopia, India, Vietnam, Philippines, Tanzania, Brazil), 108 private firm datasets (spanning 2008-2020), and many global datasets including Joint Malnutrition Estimates, and World Development Indicators to produce estimates for 120+ LMICs (with estimates up to 2021). We studied the impact of childhood stunting on adult cognition, ed...