Economic attributes and childhood stunting in Rwanda: case study of the City of Kigali.

Introduction: stunting in under five children is a great concern in low and middle-income countries including Rwanda. While over the past decades different developing countries have made remarkable efforts improving their economic growth, there is mixed evidence and lack of consensus on the impact of economic development on nutrition improvement. The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between economic attributes and childhood stunting in the City of Kigali.

Methods: this was a retrospective cross-sectional and comparative study documenting the period 2010-2017. Stunting in under five children was analyzed in relation to the economic attributes which include the household consumption per capita, annual household income and level of poverty. The analysis was done at the level of district. Official reports from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda provided data on both economic attributes and stunting.

Results: in some situations, the improvements in economic attributes such as increase in average household consumption per capita and increase in annual household income are followed by the reduction of stunting in under five children. However, in some other situations, the reduction of the level of poverty and the increase of annual household income was not translated into the reduction of stunting.

Conclusion: improvements in some economic attributes do not necessarily translate into reduction of stunting in under five children. Further studies are needed to understand possible lead forces underlying this situation including establishing the proportion of household income spent on children´s nutrition as well as possible inequity and inequality in wealth distribution.