Why Child Stunting is a Severe Public Health Crisis?

Child stunting is a severe public health issue, mostly faced by the young children of developing nations. It is the phenomenon of children not being able to grow to their potential heights, as a result of chronic or recurrent malnutrition.^[1] Furthermore, stunting is a contributing risk factor to child mortality and is also a marker of inequalities in human development. Stunted children fail to reach their physical and cognitive potential and it is prevalent in children below the age of five.

A recent study spanning India, Indonesia, Mali, and Tanzania found that sanitisation programmes designed to eliminate open defecation significantly improved child health and height. The researchers studied the impacts of a sanitation program designed to eliminate open defecation in at-scale randomized field experiments in four different countries: India, Indonesia, Mali, and Tanzania. ^[2] They used the experimentally-induced variation in access to sanitation to recognize the causal relationship between village sanitation coverage and child height. ^[2]

Open defecation (OD) is a major cause of the persistent worldwide burden of diarrhea and enteric parasite infection among children under 5 years old. It leads to faecal contamination of water and food supplies with parasitic worms and further causes diarrhoea and parasitic infection among children.
In such an occasion, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative of ' Swachh Bharat Mission with the aim to achieve the vision of a “Clean and Open Defecation-Free India” gains significance. The issue of mass open defecation and unhygienic environment is promoted in developing countries like India, Indonesia, Mali, and Tanzania. Uncontrolled population of stray dogs in the nations also contribute to this growing problem. Hence, an initiative to ensure availability of proper healthcare and shelter to stray dogs will aid in curtailing the issue of child stunting.

Both government and non-government enterprises require to take necessary actions to control the stray dog population as well as to alleviate child stunting in young aspirants. Though developed countries could tackle the issue with massive financial contributions, developing nations like India need to rely on innovative approaches for fixing the issue of child stunting.

References

1. “Indicator Metadata Registry Details,” n.d., https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/72#:~:text=Child%20stunting%20refers%20to%20a,their%20physical%20and%20cognitive%20potential.(Accessed on February 15, 2025)

2. Lisa Cameron et al., “The Dirty Business of Eliminating Open Defecation: The Effect of Village Sanitation on Child Height From Field Experiments in Four Countries,” Journal of Development Economics 159 (October 12, 2022): 102990, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102990.(Accessed on February 15, 2025)

(Input from various sources)

(Rehash/Jithin Paul/MSM)