Improving children's nutritional status in Cambodia: Multidimensional poverty and early integrated interventions

One in three Cambodian children under 5 years of age are stunted. This study adopted a multidimensional approach to understand the influence of a series of contextual factors on the nutritional status of Cambodian children. In this study, we use a multidimensional poverty framework to identify a combination of interventions likely to achieve reductions in child stunting, in Cambodia. We used the UNICEF Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis tool and data from the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2014 to assess children's multidimensional poverty across nutrition, health, early childhood development, water, sanitation, and housing dimensions. We found that 80% of children under age five were deprived in at least two poverty dimensions. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that reducing the likelihood of being deprived in three or more poverty dimensions was associated with a significant reduction of the probability of being stunted, after controlling for potential confounders. The combined probability of nondeprivation in nutrition, sanitation, and health dimensions had the largest effect on reducing the probability of stunting. The results of this study highlight the multiple, intersecting needs of children and their associated explanatory factors. Targeted and integrated cross-sectoral policies that reinforce comprehensive early childhood interventions are needed for improving nutritional status as part of a wider set of child poverty reduction measures in Cambodia.