Reproductive Health, Nutritional Status, and Macroeconomic Shocks: A Multi-Level, Quasi-Natural Experimental Analysis of Food Commodity Prices

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Global food price rises threaten to undermine progress in improving maternal and child health and nutrition. As the World Bank 2012 Global Monitoring Report titled 'Food prices, nutrition, and the MDGs' concluded "Even temporarily high food prices affect the long-term development of children...seemingly small shocks can exert great damage if they are not dealt with early." While there is strong evidence that maternal and fetal nutrition affect children's development, there is relatively little evidence linking aspects of reproductive health (e.g. breastfeeding, neonatal mortality) to the price and availability of nutritious food. Thus, our project aims to:(1) Assess the effects of food commodity prices on reproductive and child health, specifically maternal and childhood nutrition, fetal development, neonatal mortality, and early-childhood development;(2) Identify national, state and household policy responses which may mitigate or exacerbate the reproductive and child-health effects of rising food prices.To fulfil these aims, the initial phase of the project will provide a detailed qualitative and quantitative multi-level, case-study of India, which will then be extended as a cross-national analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys in 84 countries. The project will combine PopDev priority resources such as DFID Young Lives with multiple data sources and large-scale surveillance projects containing rich information on economic policy, food prices, nutrition, reproductive health. The project will build a collaborative exchange between Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Cambridge, and LSHTM, supported by a multi-disciplinary international advisory team. Its findings will reach a wide group of stakeholders through a proposed policy workshop and briefs at Chatham House, as well as through meetings with Indian stakeholders at PHFI, and through publications in population, development, and public health journals.