Eric Schneider

1/ Why do many WASH interventions have limited effects on child stunting? Our historical data suggest something surprising: Sanitation infrastructure alone often wasn’t enough, even in the past. New BMJ Global Health paper 👇 doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-…

This weekend the @EcHistSoc Economic History Society begins its centenary celebrations. Founded in 1926 at the @LSEEcHist the Society has spent 100 years supporting and disseminating research in economic and social history.

🗺️ @msaleh1982 and @RoyHistory1 are featured in this month's LSE Research for the World, about a project they undertook with Leigh Gardner to develop tools for teaching about colonialism in UK schools 🏫 Read the article here 👇 lse.ac.uk/research/resea…

✍ New post on Global Health at LSE! 'Child stunting was once common in rich countries. Lessons from global history on its decline.' @ericbschneider on his team's recent systematic review in @GlobalHealthBMJ: bit.ly/4uE2KFH #childhealth #childnutrition #globalhealth

Btw the data from the paper is available here: dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo… The paper is open access online. Thanks to all my coauthors for their contributions! @evanrobertsnz @kris_inwood among many others.

13/ Implication for today’s WASH debates: Sanitation infrastructure matters—but it may not be enough. Reducing stunting likely requires: • behaviour change • increasing the salience of child stunting Curious how others working on WASH think about this.

12/ Child stunting is not as salient as mortality as a health indicator because it is difficult for individuals to understand. Stunted children look normal relative to their peers in LMICs. They are only short compared to healthy children, which people cannot observe.

1/ Why do many WASH interventions have limited effects on child stunting? Our historical data suggest something surprising: Sanitation infrastructure alone often wasn’t enough, even in the past. New BMJ Global Health paper 👇 doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-…

@so_i Unfortunately the data for earlier centuries is not as good. The best data we have is for enslaved children in the US South and the Caribbean who had extraordinarily high stunting rates. Trends in adult height would suggest deterioration during industrialisation in some places.

@ericbschneider The progress is amazing. Do we have information on stunting in earlier centuries? Was it always high, or did early industrial revolution initially increase stunting?

What is child stunting — and how has it changed over the last 200 years? Stunting means being too short for one’s age due to chronic undernutrition and disease in early life. It’s one of the clearest markers of cumulative deprivation in childhood. 1)

@dravirmani @BjornLomborg Do read the discussion. We argue that it’s not as simple as only sanitation and sewerage. England had highly developed sanitation systems by 1900, but stunting was still very high. We argue that hygiene behaviour was also critical.

@ericbschneider @BjornLomborg Correlate with sewage and sanitation systems

@dravirmani @BjornLomborg I agree that WASH really matters. We emphasise that in the discussion of the paper!

@ericbschneider @BjornLomborg x.com/dravirmani/sta…