The risk of malnutrition among children born to HIV-infected women: Evidence from Tanzania

HIV/ AIDS as well as child malnutrition remain major public health challenges in Tan- zania. This paper investigates whether Tanzanian HIV exposed children under the age of five tend to be at a higher risk of being undernourished than unexposed children. Proxying child HIV exposure status by maternal ART intake, OLS regression analysis is carried out to determine the association between HIV exposure and child malnutrition while controlling for child, maternal and socioeconomic factors. A simple mean test reveals that HIV exposed children tend to be at a higher risk of being stunted, while the risk of wasting is lower for this group of children. There is no evidence of a significant difference in the risk of being under- weight. These observations also hold in a bivariate regression analysis and once controlling for the socioeconomic environment as well as other possible confounding factors affecting child undernutrition. In fact, the effects of HIV exposure are stronger once controlling for these variables. The socioeconomic environment is only found to have a significant effect on the risk of stunting with children from wealthier families tending to be at a lower risk of being stunted.