Nutritional Inequality in Early Life and Adult Health in Latin America

In the past 50 years, Latin America observed a significant improvement in the living conditions of its population, reflected in better health and economic indicators. However, inequality in living conditions in these countries has been largely unexplored by the absence of economic data sets and health. This paper uses the adult height as a health indicator of living conditions during childhood and adolescence in Latin America. We use data from from demographic and health surveys (DHS) for eleven countries in the region conducted after 2000. The results suggest that although it has been a positive trend in nutritional status and living conditions over time, nutritional inequality seems to have remained constant over time, which has significative impacts on adult health, measure by adult heights.
Keywords: adult height, living conditions, nutritional inequality.