Maternal education and child health: Is there a strong causal relationship?
Maternal education and child health: Is there a strong causal relationship?
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DOI：
10.2307/3004028
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发表时间：
1998-02-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Alva, S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Desai, S;Alva, S
利用22个发展中国家第一轮人口与健康调查的数据，我们研究了孕产妇教育对儿童健康的三个标志物的影响：婴儿死亡率，儿童的年龄身高和免疫状况。与其他研究相比，我们认为，虽然有很强的相关性之间的母亲教育和儿童健康的标志物，因果关系还远远没有建立。受教育程度可以代表家庭的社会经济地位和居住的地理区域。对丈夫的教育和使用自来水和厕所进行控制，减少了产妇教育对婴儿死亡率和儿童年龄身高的影响。通过使用固定效应模型控制居住面积，进一步降低了这种影响。在最后一个模型中，只有少数几个国家的产妇教育对婴儿死亡率和高度饲料有统计上的显著影响，相反，即使在个人和社区一级的控制，产妇教育仍然对儿童的免疫状况有统计上的显著影响，在大约一半的国家。
Using data from the first round of Demographic and Health Surveys for 22 developing countries, we examine the effect of maternal education on three markers of child health: infant mortality, children's height-for-age, and immunization status. In contrast to other studies, we argue that although there is a strong correlation between maternal education and markers of child health, a causal relationship is far from established. Education acts as a proxy for the socioeconomic status of the family and geographic area of residence. Introducing controls for husband's education and access to piped water and toilet attenuate the impact of maternal education on infant mortality and children's height-for-age. This effect is further reduced by controlling for area of residence through the use of fixed-effects models. In the final model, maternal education has a statistically significant impact on infant mortality and height-forage in only a handful of countries, In contrast, maternal education remains statistically significant for children's immunization status in about one-half of the countries even after individual-level and community-level controls are introduced.