Child anemia and the 2008 food price crisis in Senegal

BACKGROUND: In 2008, world food prices skyrocketed. There is little consensus on the effect of the 2008 food price crisis on poverty, food security, and population health. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effects of the 2008 crisis on maternal nutrition and child anemia in Senegal. METHODS: Child hemoglobin reflects in utero iron deposition, making it a biomarker for maternal nutrition. By comparing the hemoglobin of children in utero during the 2008 crisis to the hemoglobin of those who were breastfeeding, I estimate the impact of the 2008 crisis on maternal nutrition and child anemia. RESULTS: The 2008 crisis caused child hemoglobin measures to deteriorate in urban Senegal. The effect was largest in Dakar, where the magnitude (a 10% drop in hemoglobin) would imply an increase in the prevalence of childhood anemia from one in three children to three in four children. I find little to no impact in rural areas. CONCLUSIONS: The 2008 food price crisis had a large negative impact on child hemoglobin in urban Senegal, likely through a deterioration of maternal nutrition. There was no offsetting improvement in rural areas, meaning that the net effect of the 2008 crisis on Senegal was to substantially increase child anemia. CONTRIBUTION: There is continued debate over the effect of food price spikes on the world’s poor. With a novel empirical framework, I leverage child hemoglobin as a biomarker of iron nutrition during pregnancy, finding clear evidence of a large negative impact of the 2008 food price crisis on maternal nutrition and child anemia in Senegal. This methodology could be applied more generally, as Demographic and Health Survey data on child hemoglobin is available for a wide range of populations.