Armed conflict, household victimization, and child health in Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

We examine the causal impact of the 2002-2007 civil conflict in Côte d'Ivoire on children's health using household surveys collected before, during, and after the conflict, and information on the exact location and date of conflict events. Our identification strategy relies on exploiting both temporal and spatial variation across birth cohorts to measure children's exposure to the conflict. We find that children from regions more affected by the conflict suffered significant health setbacks compared with children from less affected regions. We further examine possible war impact mechanisms using rich survey data on households' experience of war. Our results suggest that conflict-induced economic losses, health impairment, displacement, and other forms of victimization are important channels through which armed conflict negatively impacts child health.  Olga Shemyakina would like to thank Georgia Institute of Technology for financial support. We are grateful to the National Statistical Institute and the Ministry of Planning and Development in Côte d'Ivoire for their permission to use the 2002 and 2008 HLSS (Enquêtes sur le Niveau de Vie) for this project. We are grateful to Richard Akresh,

Prevalence and public health relevance of micronutrient deficiencies and undernutrition in pre-school children and women of reproductive age in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa

“…Whether the internal conflict was an underlying reason is hard to say, although most conflict events between 2002 and 2007 took place in the south, the central-west and the north of the country (14) .…”

“…By 2007, the socio-economic situation in Côte d'Ivoire had worsened due to the internal conflict, and there were indications that nutritional and health status had deteriorated along with an increase in poverty (14) . Existing sub-national data on the prevalence of anaemia, vitamin A and Fe deficiencies were from the period before the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire and no literature on folate and vitamin B 12 deficiencies was found.…”

Extreme Weather Events and Child Height: Evidence from Mongolia

“…Minoiu and Shemyakina (2014) and Dercon and Porter (2014). While this measure is more precise than the district-level shock intensity measure, it is at the same time more likely to be subject to unobserved heterogeneity that may also affect child height.…”

“…For instance, Minoiu and Shemyakina (2014) analyze the impact of the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire between 2002 and 2007 on child anthropometrics, using multiple cross-sectional surveys from before, during, and after the 2 An early example is the study by Stein et al (1975).…”

Children of War

“…Several studies fi nd that children who were in utero and in their early childhood years during armed confl icts have lower birth weight and lower height-for-age in their teenage years (Mansour and Rees 2012; Akresh, Lucchetti, and Thirumurthy 2012;Minoiu and Shemyakina 2012;Bundervoet, Verwimp, and Akresh 2009;Alderman, Hoddinott, and Kinsey 2004). Several studies fi nd that children who were in utero and in their early childhood years during armed confl icts have lower birth weight and lower height-for-age in their teenage years (Mansour and Rees 2012; Akresh, Lucchetti, and Thirumurthy 2012;Minoiu and Shemyakina 2012;Bundervoet, Verwimp, and Akresh 2009;Alderman, Hoddinott, and Kinsey 2004).…”