Shively, Gerald

Abstract

Background: The public health burden of undernutrition remains heavy and widespread, especially in low-income countries like Nepal. While predictors of undernutrition are well documented, few studies have examined the effects of political will and quality of policy or program implementation on child growth.

Abstract

Abstract

People in fragile environments face various shocks that negatively affect their nutrition. Many governments put policy mechanisms in place to promote recovery of households after adverse shocks; however, resilience is difficult to measure because some apparent recovery could be the result of statistical randomness and reversion to trends. This paper demonstrates a new approach to measuring nutritional resilience in a population.

Abstract

Background:

Nutritional status has important implications for labor productivity, lifetime earnings, and country-wide economic development. Dietary diversity is an important contributor to nutrition.

Objective:

To identify how patterns of food consumption are related to dietary diversity and to measure the potential for policy interventions to influence diet complexity.

Abstract

The relationship between elevation of residence and a child's linear growth was studied using data for 8824 children below the age of 5 years born between 2001 and 2016 at elevations ranging from 50 to 3200 m above sea level in Nepal. Multiple regression was used to measure the role of a variety of household and community factors in explaining the observed elevation effect.

Abstract

Background

Naturally occurring aflatoxins may contribute to poor growth and nutritional statuses in children.

Objectives

We analyzed the relationship between contemporary and lagged aflatoxin exposure and 1) length-for-age z-score (LAZ); and 2) length, knee-heel length, stunting, weight-for-age z-score (WAZ), and weight-for-length z-score (WLZ).

Methods

Abstract

Abstract

A growing body of mainly cross-sectional evidence suggests an association between mycotoxins, particularly aflatoxin exposure, and poor linear growth in children. We describe the design and methods of a rigorous longitudinal birth cohort study aimed to deepen our understanding of this hypothesized relationship and to validate dried blood spots as a less invasive, low-cost collection method for venous blood samples. The AflaCohort study was conducted in Banke district of Nepal from 2015 to 2019.

Background

Aflatoxins are found in diverse foods widely consumed worldwide. This study investigated the association between aflatoxin exposure and (a) consumption of specific foods, (b) dietary diversity (DD), and (c) seasonality.

This study used maternal and newborn data from the AflaCohort Study, an ongoing birth cohort study in Banke, Nepal (n = 1621). Data on aflatoxin B1(AFB1)-lysine adducts in maternal serum were collected once during pregnancy (at mean ± SD: 136 ± 43 d of gestation). Maternal serum AFB1-lysine adduct concentration was measured via HPLC.