Wealth and regional disparities in child undernutrition: insights from national demographic and health survey

The study concludes that child malnutrition in Pakistan is fundamentally a structural equity issue. Addressing this issue requires multisectoral policy interventions focused on economic empowerment, regional development, and girls' education to break the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition. Moreover, Pakistan's extreme concentration of wealth and regional marginalization create distinct disparities that standard regional models do not fully capture. The dominance of wealth and regional factors, accounting for 65% of the explained gap, highlights the need for structural solutions, such as wealth redistribution and provincial equity funds, rather than isolated health interventions.