International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Article Are Household Expenditures on Food Groups Associated with Children’s Future Heights in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam? 1, 2 3 4 Sarah E. Weingarten y , Kirk A. Dearden , Benjamin T. Crookston , Mary E. Penny , Jere R. Behrman 5 and Debbie L. Humphries 1,* 1 Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT 06510, USA;
[email protected] 2 IMA World Health, Washington, DC 20036, USA;
[email protected] 3 Department of Public Health, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA;
[email protected] 4 Instituto de Investigación Nutricional, La Molina 15024, Peru;
[email protected] 5 Departments of Economics and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Current affiliation: CVS Health, Northbrook, IL 60062, USA. y Received: 12 May 2020; Accepted: 24 June 2020; Published: 1 July 2020 Abstract: Household expenditure surveys, routinely conducted in low—and middle-income countries (LMICs), usually include questions pertaining to recent household expenditures on key food groups. When child anthropometrics are also available, such expenditure data can provide insights into household food purchasing patterns that are associated with subsequent child growth measures. We used data from 6993 children, born around 2001, from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, from the Young Lives younger cohort. We compared associations between two weeks of household food expenditures (in PPP—Purchasing Power Parity adjusted dollars) on food groups and child height-for-age-Z score (HAZ) at subsequent time points to assess longitudinal associations.