The prevalence of child stunting (26 percent) in Bolivia is fairly high in
comparison to many other developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (second
highest among the eight countries covered in this symposium, as shown in Table 3). This study
analyzes the associations between child height and weight Z-scores on one hand, and on the
other hand a set of other factors including culture, geography, mother’s height, mother’s
schooling, private assets and access to public services. This study uses data on more than 3,000
children from a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). The estimates point to geographical
factors (namely the strong inverse association with altitude), cultural variables (a strong inverse
association with mothers who speak only Quechua) and mothers’ anthropometrical
characteristics as major correlates of child anthropometric outcomes