Dynamic modeling of child malnutrition and morbidity: Evidence from Nairobi's slums

This paper contributes to the analysis of the relation between child malnutrition and morbidity by providing a comprehensive assessment of the mutual impacts of the two phenomena. We investigate the synergistic relationship between malnutrition and morbidity among infants in Nairobi's poor urban settlements using data from 3,459 children enrolled in an ongoing Maternal and Child Health Longitudinal study. For our analysis we use a joint dynamic framework to account for persistence in a given nutritional or morbidity status, and also for dynamic cross-effects between the two phenomena. We address the econometric challenges associated to our analytical framework using a bivariate random effects dynamic probit model, a bivariate extension of Wooldridge approach. This paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we propose an analytical framework that examines both dynamics of malnutrition and morbidity and analyze the contamination process between them, which permits to investigate the interactions existing across the two problems. Second, we contribute to shed light on a very important empirical question: does malnutrition interact identically with all common forms of morbidity, or is its effects stronger for some types of morbidity than others? Answer to this question may have important policy implications.