District Level Analytical Study of Infant Malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh

One of the main causes for India’s high infant mortality rate is malnutrition. It can be addressed using three broad groups of conditions: stunting, wasting, and underweight. Other factors such as sanitation, poverty, breastfeeding also contribute to the prevalence of malnutrition. Understanding the contribution of these factors and thus, eliminating them, to reduce malnutrition, is the purpose of this study. In this chapter, the district-level data obtained through NFHS-4 is used for analytical study for infant malnutrition, in Madhya Pradesh. Hierarchical Agglomerative clustering is used to group the districts based on the factors such as exclusively breastfeeding, inoculation, breastfeeding within one hour, no inoculation. The proposed model presents the effect of each factor, on infant malnutrition. It will help decision-makers and the government to shortlist the most appropriate districts contributing to malnutrition and to take curative action to reduce the rate of infant malnutrition. It is a generic model which can be utilized by other states to study infant malnutrition.