Correction: Re-examining the effects of drought on intimate-partner violence.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254346.].

The Socio-Environmental Determinants of Childhood Malnutrition: A Spatial and Hierarchical Analysis.

Despite a remarkable reduction in global poverty and famines, substantial childhood malnutrition continues to persist. In 2017, over 50 million and 150 million young children suffered from acute malnutrition (wasting) and chronic malnutrition (stunting), respectively. Yet, the measurable impact of determinants is obscure. We evaluate proposed socio-environmental related determinants of stunting and wasting across Kenya and Nigeria and quantify their effectiveness. We combine health and demographic data from Kenya and Nigeria Demographic Health Surveys (2003, 2008-2009, 2013, 2014) with spatially explicit precipitation, temperature, and vegetation data. Geospatial and disaggregated data help to understand better who is at risk and where to target mitigation efforts. We evaluate the responsiveness of malnutrition indicators using a four-level random intercept hierarchical generalized logit model. We find that spatial and hierarchical relationships explain 28% to 36% of malnutrition outcome variation. Temporal variation in precipitation, temperature, and vegetation corresponds with more than a 50% change in malnutrition rates. Wasting is most impacted by mother's education, family wealth, clinical delivery, and vaccinations. Stunting is most impacted by family wealth, mother's education, clinical delivery, vaccinations, and children asymptomatic of fever, cough, or diarrhea. Remotely monitored climatic variables are powerful determinants, however, their effects are inconsistent across different indicators and locations.

The legacy of a standard of normality in child nutrition research.

Anthropometric evaluation of children is among the most vital and widely used instruments of public health and clinical medicine. Anthropometry is used for establishing norms, identifying variations, and monitoring development. Yet the accurate assessment of physical growth and development of children remains a perpetually beleaguering subject. This paper focuses on the evolution of anthropometry as a science and its associated measurements, indices, indicators, standards, references, and best practices. This paper seeks to clarify aspects of the assessment of child growth, explores the historical trajectory of the study of anthropometry and its contemporary limitations, and contributes to the debate surrounding references and standards, and the applicability of international anthropometric standards to an individual's health. Among its findings is a surprisingly nonlinear and contested record of events, up to and including leading contemporary practices and datasets. It contextualizes the legacy of child malnutrition studies in a broad framework, including the linkage between the early eugenics movement and contemporary notions of a "normal" child, the interpersonal and intuitional competition to become the preeminent child growth authority, the obfuscated distinction between reference growth charts and standards of growth, and the hidden consequences of universal growth standards that no longer reflect any observable populations.

Re-examining the effects of drought on intimate-partner violence.

Droughts are associated with several societal ills, especially in developing economies that rely on rainfed agriculture. Recently, researchers have begun to examine the effect of droughts on the risk of Intimate-Partner Violence (IPV), but so far this work has led to inconclusive results. For example, two large recent studies analyzed comparable data from multiple sub-Saharan African countries and drew opposite conclusions. We attempt to resolve this apparent paradox by replicating previous analyses with the largest data set yet assembled to study drought and IPV. Integrating the methods of previous studies and taking particular care to control for spatial autocorrelation, we find little association between drought and most forms of IPV, although we do find evidence of associations between drought and women's partners exhibiting controlling behaviors. Moreover, we do not find significant heterogeneous effects based on wealth, employment, household drinking water sources, or urban-rural locality.