Shively, Gerald

Transportation development accompanies economic development, both as a driver of growth and as an outcome of economy-wide investments made possible by growth. Evidence of the effects of roads and road quality on human well-being is limited. This paper studies the association between district-level transportation infrastructure and district-average child nutrition outcomes in Nepal. We combine two rounds of nationally representative data on child growth from the 2006 and 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys with district-level information on roads and road quality.

This poster shows data supporting the relationship between maize and groundnut consumption and aflatoxin levels in Nepalese women eating a rice-dominated diet.

We use panel data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) administered among 1200 smallholders in Uganda to evaluate input use and food security impacts of an improved maize storage technology. After two seasons, households who received the technology were 10 percentage points more likely to plant hybrid maize varieties that are more susceptible to insect pests in storage than traditional lower-yielding varieties.

This poster details aflatoxin rates, control practices, and prevention practices in Banke, Nepal. Presented at Experimental Biology in 2017.
 

This poster details the protocol for the Aflacohort birth cohort study, conducted in Banke, Nepal. Presented at the 5th Annual Scientific Symposium in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Abstract:?This paper studies the connections between child nutrition and food prices in Nepal. Data from a number of sources are combined, including the 2006 and 2011 Nepal Demographic Health Surveys and monthly retail food price data collected over the period 2002 to 2010 from 34 districts of Nepal. A total of 4,038 children are used for the analysis (2,765 from 2006 and 1,273 from 2011). Price data are selected for six food commodities important for child nutrition outcomes: coarse rice, wheat flour, sugar, ghee, soybean and milk.

Aflatoxins are harmful to animals and humans. Much is unknown about the determinants of aflatoxin exposure, and how specific agricultural practices may lead to, or help limit, food contamination and diet exposure. Based on prior studies, chronic consumption of aflatoxins may be a public health concern in Nepal.

Incorporating agriculture into nutrition policy requires an understanding of how agricultural performance, rainfall, and the economic and physical environments in which children reside relate to linear growth and weight gain. This paper combines anthropometric data from children below the age of 5 y in Nepal and Uganda with rainfall data and other information to measure these connections. Anthropometric outcomes are positively correlated with rainfall prior to birth, during the first year, and during agricultural growing seasons preceding child measurement.

Although malnutrition rates have been on the decline in Uganda over the past two decades, they remain high. Challenges to achieving nutritional improvements result, in part, from high staple foods prices, which raise the cost of the food basket and increase the risk of food and nutrition insecurity, especially for poor households who are net buyers of staple foods. Nearly two-thirds of Ugandan households are net buyers of staples, a pattern that highlights the potential importance of food prices as a key driver of food insecurity.