Abstract
Background
More than 20% of the children around the world were stunted in 2018. The situation is not any better in Latin American countries, even though stunting prevalence has been declining since 2000. Stunting has adverse consequences on children: severe short- and long-term health and functional effects, poor cognition and educational performance, low adult wages, and productivity loss.
Methods
This study compares maternal education gradients in height-for-age z-scores (HAZs) and stunting prevalence in children between two and four years of age from eight different Latin American countries: Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Peru.
Results
Results show that the prevalence of stunting varies widely across Latin American countries. Having a mother with tertiary education increases HAZs in every country (except Paraguay), compared to having a mother with primary education or less. In some countries, there is also a difference in HAZs associated with secondary versus primary maternal education. With regard to stunting, maternal education is a crucial determinant to decrease the odds of being stunted in early years in countries with the highest stunting prevalence (≈ 20%); however, this is not the case for countries where the prevalence is low (< 5%).
Conclusions
We found that maternal education is associated with height and stunting in preschool-aged children in our sampled Latin American countries. The association’s magnitude is higher for LMICs than for countries with a higher income per capita in the zone (i.e., Chile and Uruguay). These results suggest that future policies aiming to increase maternal education will improve children’s height-for-age and decrease their risk of stunting.
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