China Academy for Rural Development, School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
China Academy for Rural Development, School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; International Food Policy Research Institute, Beijing Office, Beijing, China.
Nutrition. 2023 Jan;105:111850. doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2022.111850. Epub 2022 Sep 24.
The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between poverty and children's nutritional outcomes.
Drawing on a 2018 survey of the preschool nutrition program conducted in the Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan Province, China, we applied propensity score matching to estimate the average treatment effects on the treated children.
The most striking result was that although poverty is often used as predictive of poor childhood nutrition, this effect was only significant for weight-for-age z-score and height-for-age z-score, but not for other nutritional indicators, cognition, or social emotional indexes. The results varied using different measures of poverty. The weak linkage between poverty and children's nutritional outcomes was confirmed by a series of robustness checks by changing the covariates for matching, adopting other matching methods, using bootstrapping standard errors, and building on machine learning tools.
A single tool of small money transfer would have limited effects, but considerable income increases that lift the poor out of poverty are important for the poor. Additionally, a mixed tool of financial support and nutritional knowledge may lead to better outcomes, especially for those living above the poverty line.
本研究旨在探讨贫困与儿童营养状况之间的关系。
本研究利用 2018 年在中国湖南省湘西自治州开展的学前营养计划调查数据，采用倾向评分匹配法估计了对治疗组儿童的平均处理效应。
最显著的结果是，尽管贫困通常被用作预测儿童营养状况不良的指标，但这种影响仅在体重-年龄 z 评分和身高-年龄 z 评分方面显著，而在其他营养指标、认知或社会情感指标方面则不显著。使用不同的贫困衡量指标时，结果有所不同。通过改变匹配的协变量、采用其他匹配方法、使用引导标准误差以及利用机器学习工具进行一系列稳健性检验，证实了贫困与儿童营养结果之间的弱关联性。
单一的小额资金转移工具效果有限，但大幅增加收入使贫困人口脱贫对贫困人口来说很重要。此外，金融支持和营养知识相结合的混合工具可能会带来更好的结果，特别是对于那些处于贫困线以上的人。
