Escuela de Administración Pública, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2362415, Chile.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Dec 12;18(24):13112. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182413112.
Following Salvatore and the WHO, in this article, we provide the first long-term estimates of malnutrition rates for Chile per birth cohort, measured through stunting rates of adult males born from the 1870s to the 1990s. We used a large sample of military records, representative of the whole Chilean population, totalling over 38 thousand individuals. Our data suggest that stunting rates were very high for those born between the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century. In addition, stunting rates increased from the 1870s to the 1900s. Thereafter, there was a clear downward trend in stunting rates (despite some fluctuations), reaching low levels of malnutrition, in particular, from the 1960s (although these are high if compared to developed countries). The continuous decrease in stunting rates from the 1910s was mainly due to a combination of factors, the importance of which varied over time, namely: Improved health (i.e., sharp decline in infant mortality rates during the whole period); increased energy consumption (from the 1930s onwards, but most importantly during the 1990s); a decline in poverty rates (in particular, between the 1930s and the 1970s); and a reduction in child labour (although we are less able to quantify this).
本文遵循萨尔瓦托雷和世卫组织的做法，首次针对智利每一生育队列提供长期营养不良率估计值，通过测量 19 世纪 70 年代至 20 世纪 90 年代出生的成年男性的发育迟缓率来衡量。我们使用了大量的军事记录，这些记录代表了整个智利人口，总计超过 38000 人。我们的数据表明，19 世纪最后三十年至 20 世纪头二十年出生的人的发育迟缓率非常高。此外，发育迟缓率从 19 世纪 70 年代上升到 20 世纪。此后，尽管出现了一些波动，但发育迟缓率呈明显下降趋势，营养不良程度较低，特别是从 20 世纪 60 年代开始（尽管与发达国家相比，这些水平仍然较高）。20 世纪 10 年代以来发育迟缓率的持续下降主要归因于多种因素的综合作用，这些因素的重要性随时间而变化，即：健康状况改善（即整个期间婴儿死亡率急剧下降）；能源消耗增加（从 20 世纪 30 年代开始，但在 20 世纪 90 年代尤为重要）；贫困率下降（特别是在 20 世纪 30 年代至 70 年代之间）；以及童工减少（尽管我们对此的量化能力较弱）。
