IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gdm/wpaper/3308.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Mortality and Morbidity Transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Adult Heights

Author

Listed:
  • Yoko Akachi

    (European University Institute)

  • David Canning

    (Harvard School of Public Health)

Abstract

In most developing countries, rising levels of nutrition and improvements in public health have led to declines in infant mortality and rising adult heights. In Sub-Saharan Africa we see a different pattern. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen large reductions in infant mortality over the last fifty years, but without any increase in protein and energy intake and against a background of stagnant, or declining, adult height. Adult height is a sensitive indicator of the nutrition and morbidity prevailing during the childhood of the cohort and can be taken as a measure of health human capital. Declining infant mortality rates in Sub-Saharan Africa appear to be driven by medical interventions that reduce infant mortality, rather than by broad based improvements in nutrition and public health measures, and may not be reflective of broad based health improvements.

Suggested Citation

  • Yoko Akachi & David Canning, 2008. "The Mortality and Morbidity Transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Adult Heights," PGDA Working Papers 3308, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    • Handle: RePEc:gdm:wpaper:3308
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/pgda/WorkingPapers/2008/PGDA_WP_33.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Komlos, 1993. "The secular trend in the biological standard of living in the United Kingdom, 1730-1860," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 46(1), pages 115-144, February.
    2. Gary S. Becker & Tomas J. Philipson & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 277-291, March.
    3. Robert Fogel & Dora Costa, 1997. "A theory of technophysio evolution, with some implications for forecasting population, health care costs, and pension costs," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(1), pages 49-66, February.
    4. Yoko Akachi & David Canning, 2007. "The Height of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Role of Health, Nutrition, and Income in Childhood," PGDA Working Papers 2207, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    5. Kenneth Harttgen & Mark Misselhorn, 2006. "A Multilevel Approach to Explain Child Mortality and Undernutrition in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 152, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    6. David N. Well, 2007. "Accounting for the Effect Of Health on Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1265-1306.
    7. Robert William Fogel, 1993. "New Sources and New Techniques for the Study of Secular Trends in Nutritional Status, Health, Mortality, and the Process of Aging," NBER Historical Working Papers 0026, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    9. Moradi, Alexander, 2010. "Nutritional status and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa, 1950-1980," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 16-29, March.
    10. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Sevilla, Jaypee, 2004. "The Effect of Health on Economic Growth: A Production Function Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-13, January.
    11. Gauri Kartini Shastry & David N. Weil, 2003. "How Much of Cross-Country Income Variation is Explained by Health?," Working Papers 2003-08, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Bos, Eduard & Vu, My T. & Stephens, Patience W., 1992. "Sources of World Bank estimates of current mortality rates," Policy Research Working Paper Series 851, The World Bank.
    13. Schultz, T. Paul, 2005. "Productive Benefits of Health: Evidence from Low-Income Countries," Center Discussion Papers 28532, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    14. Gauri Kartini Shastry & David N. Weil, 2003. "How Much of Cross-Country Income Variation is Explained By Health?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 387-396, 04/05.
    15. T. Paul Schultz, 2002. "Wage Gains Associated with Height as a Form of Health Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 349-353, May.
    16. Blackwell, Debra L. & Hayward, Mark D. & Crimmins, Eileen M., 2001. "Does childhood health affect chronic morbidity in later life?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1269-1284, April.
    17. John Komlos & Benjamin E. Lauderdale, 2007. "Underperformance in Affluence: The Remarkable Relative Decline in U.S. Heights in the Second Half of the 20th Century," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 88(2), pages 283-305, June.
    18. Richard H. Steckel, 1995. "Stature and the Standard of Living," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1903-1940, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Denis Cogneau & Léa Rouanet, 2009. "Living Conditions in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Western Africa 1925-1985: What Do Survey Data on Height Stature Tell Us?," Working Papers DT/2009/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    2. Anna-Maria Aksan & Shankha Chakraborty, 2013. "Childhood disease and the precautionary demand for children," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 855-885, July.
    3. Víctor Hugo de Oliveira Sila & Climent Quintana, 2009. "Infant disease, economic conditions at birth and adult stature in Brazil," Working Papers 2009-33, FEDEA.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4300 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akachi, Yoko & Canning, David, 2010. "Health trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicting evidence from infant mortality rates and adult heights," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 273-288, July.
    2. Weil, David N., 2014. "Health and Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 3, pages 623-682, Elsevier.
    3. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    5. David E Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2020. "The contribution of female health to economic development [The costs of missing the Millennium Development Goal on gender equity]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(630), pages 1650-1677.
    6. Dora L. Costa, 2015. "Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 503-570, September.
    7. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2010. "Contribution of health to economic development: A survey and overview," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-52.
    8. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2009. "Contribution of health to economic development: a survey and overview," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-40, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Clarke, Damian & Gomes, Joseph & Venkataramani, Atheendar, 2018. "Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation," IZA Discussion Papers 11590, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. David Canning, 2012. "Progress in Health around the World," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(12), pages 1784-1798, December.
    11. Yoko Akachi & David Canning, 2007. "The Height of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Role of Health, Nutrition, and Income in Childhood," PGDA Working Papers 2207, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    12. David Canning, 2011. "The Causes and Consequences of the Demographic Transition," PGDA Working Papers 7911, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    13. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2018. "Health and Economic Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 11939, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Fraser Summerfield & Livio Di Matteo, 2021. "Influenza Pandemics and Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Recent Economic History," Working Papers 210002, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
    15. Peter Lorentzen & John McMillan & Romain Wacziarg, 2008. "Death and development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 81-124, June.
    16. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    17. Deniz Karaoğlan & Dürdane Şirin Saraçoğlu, 2018. "Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Early Childhood Health: the Case of Turkey," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(3), pages 1051-1075, June.
    18. David Canning, 2006. "The Economics of HIV/AIDS in Low-Income Countries: The Case for Prevention," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 121-142, Summer.
    19. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Günther Fink, 2014. "Disease and Development Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(6), pages 1355-1366.
    20. Alsan, Marcella & Bloom, David E. & Canning, David, 2006. "The effect of population health on foreign direct investment inflows to low- and middle-income countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 613-630, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mortality; Sub-Saharan; morbidity; heights;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gdm:wpaper:3308. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cinzia Smothers (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/degraus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.