extended · article · 2020

Linear measurement of child nutrition in Liberia: An exploratory study

Independentresearcher, Maryland, USA; R. Jerome Anderson; William P. Fisher Jr.

This research utilizes the Rasch model to generate linear measures of nutrition from data on foods fed to children, thus providing a gauge with which to measure levels of child nutrition across a population. Linear measures are standardized, interval units that allow comparisons of latent constructs over time and among differing socio-economic variables. In this research, the latent construct is child nutrition. The data were drawn from the 2007 and 2013 Liberian Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). The DHS provides data on foods fed to children, grouped by differing nutritional values. The Rasch software constructs interval measures from the yes/no responses given to the questions regarding foods fed to children. The measures then rank the foods fed to children from most frequently fed to least frequently fed. An examination of the resulting patterns indicates the nutritional levels of...