Data for the paper on “Does early growth failure influence later school performance? A cohort study in Karonga district, northern Malawi”

Sunny, B, Glynn, JR and Crampin, AC. 2018. Data for the paper on “Does early growth failure influence later school performance? A cohort study in Karonga district, northern Malawi”. [Online]. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom. Available from: https://doi.org/10.17037/DATA.00000675.

Sunny, B, Glynn, JR and Crampin, AC. Data for the paper on “Does early growth failure influence later school performance? A cohort study in Karonga district, northern Malawi” [Internet]. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; 2018. Available from: https://doi.org/10.17037/DATA.00000675.

Sunny, B, Glynn, JR and Crampin, AC (2018). Data for the paper on “Does early growth failure influence later school performance? A cohort study in Karonga district, northern Malawi”. [Data Collection]. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.17037/DATA.00000675.

Description

Anthropometric data collected as part of the baseline census of a demographic surveillance performed between 2002 and 2004 in the southern part of Karonga district in northern Malawi. Data was collected at birth, with follow-up after a year and with further rounds of anthropometric data for all children below the age of 10 between 2008-2011. Individual and household-level socio-demographic and schooling data were also combined to account for socio-economic and schooling histories of participants from 2007-2015, allowing us to examine the relationship between stunting in early years and school outcomes at older ages.

Methods

Description of data capture

Data Collection Methods: Staff were trained to collect anthropometric data at regular intervals. Recumbent length was used for children below the age of 2, while height for children above age 2 was measured using a Leicester height measure. Survey data was administered by field staff using paper questionnaires and in the local language, Chitumbuka. Data collection was supervised and managed on site by a team of scientists, field enumerators and data entry personnel. Data was then double-entered into MS Access by the data entry office for further analysis. Informed consent to participate in the study was sought from household heads. Further details on data collection methods can be found in the paper. Data Analysis and Preparation: Raw anthropometric data was transformed into height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) based on the WHO growth references for children below and above age 5. Growth failure/stunting was defined as the HAZ <-2SD. Growth trajectories between early and late childhood were defined as being never stunted, improvers (stunted in early but not stunted in late childhood), decliners (not stunted in early but stunted in late childhood) or persistently stunted (in early and late childhood). For data on school outcomes, age at entry was determined by the cut-off of age 6 (<6 being underage, >6 being overage enrolment). Age-for-grade is the number of years a child is ahead/behind in class based on the official age-for-grade and provides a cumulative measure of school performance. The effects of stunting on grade repetition in Standard 1, which is has the highest proportion of repeaters in primary school, was also examined.

Data capture method

Questionnaire

Data Collection Period

From	To
2002	2015

Date (Date submitted to LSHTM repository)

1 October 2018

Geographical area covered (offline during plugin upgrade)

North Latitude	East Longitude	South Latitude	West Longitude
-9.9289	33.9396	-9.97489	33.886

Language(s) of written materials

English

People & Groups

Data Creators	Sunny, B, Glynn, JR and Crampin, AC
Associated roles	Kanjala, C (Data Manager)
LSHTM Faculty/Department	Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Participating Institutions	London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Projects

Funders

Project	Funder	Grant Number	Funder URI
Karonga Prevention Study	Wellcome Trust	WT (079828/Z/06/C and 098610/Z/12/Z); ESRC (ES/L013967/1)	UNSPECIFIED
UNSPECIFIED	Economic & Social Research Council	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED