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Measurement of Human Recognition: A Methodology with Empirical Applications in India and Kenya
Full text linkThis paper develops and applies a methodology for measuring human recognition, which is defined as the acknowledgement provided to an individual by other individuals, groups, or organizations that he is of inherent value with intrinsic qualities in common with the recognizer. A framework is developed that organizes the sources of human recognition into various domains of an individual's life. The framework is used to develop an index of indicators that measures human recognition received in each of the domains and combines these domain-specific measures into a single overall measure of human recognition received. Two empirical applications of the index are presented with cross-sectional survey data from India and Kenya. Exploratory factor analysis is used to generate measures of human recognition with the index, and the resulting measures are used in multivariate regression models of nutritional status. Results from both datasets provide evidence that human recognition is a significant, independent, positive determinant of nutritional status, controlling for socio-economic characteristics. The method and applications demonstrate how latent, intangible aspects of development such as human recognition can be measured and indicate that further empirical work on the determinants and effects of human recognition is both feasible and needed.human recognition, nutrition, health, dehumanization, dignity, respect, domestic violence, measurement, India, Kenya, economic development, poverty
NUTRITION IN INDIA: FACTS AND INTERPRETATIONS
Full text linkThe Indian economy has recently grown at historically unprecedented rates and is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Real GDP per head grew at 3.95 percent a year from 1980 to 2005, and at 5.4 percent a year from 2000 to 2005. Measured at international prices, real per capita income in India, which was two-thirds of Kenya’s in 1950, and about the same as Nigeria’s, is now two and a half times as large as per capita income in both countries. Real per capita consumption has also grown rapidly, at 2.2 percent a year in the 1980s, at 2.5 percent a year in the 1990s, and at 3.9 percent a year from 2000 to 2005. Although the household survey data show much slower rates of per capita consumption growth than do these national accounts estimates, even these slower growth rates are associated with a substantial decrease in poverty since the early 1980s, Deaton and Drèze (2002), Himanshu (2007). Yet, per capita calorie intake is declining, as is the intake of many other nutrients; indeed fats are the only major nutrient group whose per capita consumption is unambiguously increasing. Today, more than three quarters of the population live in households whose per capita calorie consumption is less than 2,100 in urban areas and 2,400 in rural areas – numbers that are often cited as “minimum requirements” in India. A related concern is that anthropometric indicators of nutrition in India, for both adults and children, are among the worst in the world. Furthermore, the improvement of these measures of nutrition appears to be slow relative to what might be expected in the light of international experience and of India’s recent high rates of economic growth. Indeed, according to the National Family Health Survey, the proportion of underweight children remained virtually unchanged between 1998-99 and 2005-06 (from 47 to 46 percent for the age group of 0-3 years). 2 Undernutrition levels in India remain higher even than for most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, even though those countries are currently much poorer than India, have grown much more slowly, and have much higher levels of infant and child mortality. In this paper, we do not attempt to provide a complete and fully documented story of poverty, nutrition and growth in India. In fact, we doubt that such an account is currently possible. Instead, our aim is to present the most important facts, to point to a number of unresolved puzzles, and to present an outline of a coherent story that is consistent with the facts. As far as the decline in per capita calorie consumption is concerned, our leading hypothesis, on which much work remains to be done, is that while real incomes and real wages have increased (leading to some nutritional improvement), there has been an offsetting reduction in calorie requirements, due to declining levels of physical activity and possibly also to various improvements in the health environment. The net effect has been a slow reduction in per capita calorie consumption. Whatever the explanation, there is historical evidence of related episodes in other countries, for example in Britain from 1775 to 1850, where in spite of rising real wages, there was no apparent increase in the real consumption of food, Clark et al (1995). Per capita calorie consumption also appears to have declined in contemporary China in the 1980s and 1990s (a period of rapid improvement in nutrition indicators such as height and weight), see Du, Lu, Zhai and Popkin (2002). One of our main points is that, just as there is no tight link between incomes and calorie consumption, there is no tight link between the numbers of calories consumed and nutritional or health status. Although the number of calories is important, so are other factors, such as a balanced diet containing a reasonable proportion of fruits, vegetables, and fats, not just calories from cereals, as are factors that affect the need for and retention of calories, such as activity 3 levels, clean water, sanitation, good hygiene practices, and vaccinations. Because of changes in these other factors, the fact that people are increasingly choosing away from a diet that is heavy in cereals does not imply that nutritional status will automatically get worse. Nor should a reduction in calories associated with lower activity levels be taken to mean that Indians are currently adequately nourished; nothing could be further from the truth. We start by documenting the decline in per capita calorie consumption (Section 2.1), as well as the state of malnutrition (Section 2.2). We then look at possible reasons for the reduction in calories (Section 3.1), and try to tease out how it fits into the general picture of economic growth and malnutrition in India (Section 3.2). Section 4 concludes. We emphasize at the outset that our analysis covers the period up to 2006, so that we do not discuss what has happened to calorie consumption or to nutritional status in the subsequent two years, during which there has been a marked increase in the price of food, both in India and around the world.
Home visits by community health workers to prevent neonatal deaths in developing countries: a systematic review
No full textOBJECTIVE: To determine whether home visits for neonatal care by community health workers can reduce infant and neonatal deaths and stillbirths in resource-limited settings. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review up to 2008 of controlled trials comparing various intervention packages, one of them being home visits for neonatal care by community health workers. We performed meta-analysis to calculate the pooled risk of outcomes. FINDINGS: Five trials, all from southAsia, satisfied the inclusion criteria. The intervention packages included in them comprised antenatal home visits (all trials), home visits during the neonatal period (all trials), home-based treatment for illness (3 trials) and community mobilization efforts (4 trials). Meta-analysis showed a reduced risk of neonatal death (relative risk, RR: 0.62; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.440.87) and stillbirth (RR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.65-0.89), and a significant improvement in antenatal and neonatal practice indicators (1 antenatal check-up, 2 doses of maternal tetanus toxoid, clean umbilical cord care, early breastfeeding and delayed bathing). Only one trial recorded infant deaths (RR: 0.41; 0.30-0.57). Subgroup analyses suggested a greater survival benefit when home visit coverage was > 50% (P < 0.001) and when both preventive and curative interventions (injectable antibiotics) were conducted (P= 0.088). CONCLUSION: Home visits for antenatal and neonatal care, together with community mobilization activities, are associated with reduced neonatal mortality and stillbirths in southern Asian settings with high neonatal mortality and poor access to facility-based health care
Effect of iron-fortified foods on hematologic and biological outcomes: systematic review of randomized controlled trials
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The recent WHO guideline on acute malnutrition overestimates therapeutic energy requirement
No full textSummary: The World Health Organization has recently updated the guideline on the prevention and management of wasting and nutritional oedema (acute malnutrition) in infants and children under 5 years. Apart from differences with regard to the nutritional framework that defines the quantity of energy required as Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for the outpatient treatment of severe wasting and/or nutritional oedema, there are also important gaps in the practical guidance. Instead of the recommended energy intake of 150–185 kcal/kg/day, our alternative calculations indicate the requirement to be only 105–120 kcal/kg/day. If true, the implementation of such caloric overfeeding can have adverse consequences. Gaps in practical guidance also need to be addressed, including the timing of transition to home-based diets, maximal duration of therapeutic feeding, especially in non-responders (∼50% in South Asia), and the role of augmented home foods as the primary therapeutic food option
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Brains versus Brawn: Labor Market Returns to Intellectual and Health Human Capital in a Poor Developing Country
Full text linkPrevious studies report that adult height has significant associations with wages even controlling for schooling. But schooling and height are imperfect measures of adult cognitive skills (“brains”) and strength (“brawn”); further they are not exogenous. Analysis of rich Guatemalan longitudinal data over 35 years finds that proximate determinants—adult reading comprehension skills and fat-free body mass—have significantly positive associations with wages, but only brains, and not brawn, is significant when both human capital measures are treated as endogenous. Even in a poor developing economy in which strength plausibly has rewards, labor market returns are increased by brains, not brawn.
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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