Effect of Women's Nutritional Transition on Infant Survival in India: A Two-Stage Logit Model Analysis

Niyati Joshi, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
C.P. Prakasam, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS),Mumbai,India
Nandita Saikia, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Women in Urban India are susceptible to food culture like MacDonaldisation in globalization era which may have an adverse impact on nutritional status. We develop Two Stage Logit Model and apply to National Family Health Survey Data (1998-99) to understand pathways to infant survival in response to womens’ changing food culture and choose correlates of: Dietary, Life style, other life style, Institutional Pregnancy care, breastfeeding, obesity, anaemia and educational status. Initial model is selected by Brown Screening Technique and then by Standard Stepwise procedure and model predictivity is estimated by AIC, compute higher order interactions and select best fit model for predictors. The analysis suggested two models and pathways to infant survival. The findings demand attention of program managers that urban womens’ transitional food culture, their socio-economic and dietary practice and life style correlates need consideration into designing intervention strategies for interaction of infant survival and womens’ nutritional transition.