An empirical analysis of health status determinants in Tanzania with a special focus on child malnutrition

This study attempts to analyze the Determinants of health status in Tanzania with a special focus on child malnutrition. The study uses data from the 2004/2005 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey to examine child stunting at national, rural and urban levels. The approach applied is the Logistic model which is more appropriate in studying stunting since the dependent variable is a binary variable. The empirical results of the pooled sample show place of residence, household meals, age, and sex of a child, child fever, household wealth and mother’s higher education significantly affect prevalence of child stunting. However, accessibility to tap water, bad toilet facility, child cough, accessibility to vaccination, mother’s primary and secondary education and place of child delivered have insignificant impact. Some differences are found in comparing the rural and urban analysis results. Generally, the results suggest reconstruction of the country’s education and health infrastructure, greater funding for health services in the public sector, combating malaria and other communicable diseases through mother’s education, cash transfers to women living in poverty, raising school enrollment and attendance of girls for higher education, and economic growth and investment need to become more rural focused may help to reduces prevalence of child stunting.