Abay Kibrom A, Amare Mulubrhan
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya.
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA.
Econ Hum Biol. 2018 Sep;31:238-248. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2018.09.001. Epub 2018 Sep 28.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity are increasing in many African countries and hence becoming regional public health challenges. We employ satellite-based night light intensity data as a proxy for urbanization to investigate the relationship between urbanization and women's body weight. We use two rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey data from Nigeria. We employ both nonparametric and parametric estimation approaches that exploit both the cross-sectional and longitudinal variations in night light intensities. Our empirical analysis reveals nonlinear relationships between night light intensity and women's body weight measures. Doubling the sample's average level of night light intensity is associated with up to a ten percentage point increase in the probability of overweight. However, despite the generally positive relationship between night light intensity and women's body weight, the strength of the relationship varies across the assorted stages of night light intensity. Early stages of night light intensity are not significantly associated with women's body weight, while higher stages of nightlight intensities are associated with higher rates of overweight and obesity. Given that night lights are strong predictors of urbanization and related economic activities, our results hint at nonlinear relationships between various stages of urbanization and women's body weight.
在许多非洲国家，超重和肥胖的患病率正在上升，因此成为区域性公共卫生挑战。我们使用基于卫星的夜间灯光强度数据作为城市化的替代指标，来研究城市化与女性体重之间的关系。我们使用了来自尼日利亚的两轮人口与健康调查数据。我们采用了非参数和参数估计方法，利用了夜间灯光强度的横截面和纵向变化。我们的实证分析揭示了夜间灯光强度与女性体重指标之间的非线性关系。将样本的平均夜间灯光强度翻倍，与超重概率最多增加10个百分点相关。然而，尽管夜间灯光强度与女性体重之间总体呈正相关，但这种关系的强度在不同的夜间灯光强度阶段有所不同。夜间灯光强度的早期阶段与女性体重没有显著关联，而较高阶段的夜间灯光强度与超重和肥胖率较高相关。鉴于夜间灯光是城市化和相关经济活动的有力预测指标，我们的结果暗示了城市化的不同阶段与女性体重之间的非线性关系。
