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Early Childhood Health During Conflict: The Legacy of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda *
Author(s) -
Bridges Sarah,
Scott Douglas
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
oxford bulletin of economics and statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.131
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0084
pISSN - 0305-9049
DOI - 10.1111/obes.12480
Subject(s) - mediation , resistance (ecology) , demography , insurgency , psychology , medicine , political science , sociology , biology , law , ecology , politics
This paper finds evidence of severe health deficits among young children who were exposed to the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency in Northern Uganda (1987–2007). We employ a difference‐in‐differences approach to estimate a 0.74 standard deviation deficit in height‐for‐age z‐scores among children exposed to the fighting for a period of more than 9 months. Extending our analysis, we use a mediation model to investigate the transmission mechanisms through which the war may have affected childhood nutrition. We find support for the hypothesis that deficits occurred partly through changes in the frequency at which younger children received solid or semi‐solid foods.