Baseline Economic and Health Status of the Rural Population in the Gabú Region of Guinea-Bissau

The relative impact and interaction of cash transfers and nutrition-related measures to enhance children's growth are unknown. The objective of this paper is to describe and analyze indicators for a baseline population that is participating in a randomized controlled trial with crossover design of three levels of cash transfer (no transfer, lower amount, higher amount) and two levels of growth monitoring of children (no growth monitoring, growth monitoring) in 1,980 households in the Gabú region of Guinea-Bissau. Socioeconomic and health surveys were conducted and indicators were derived that will be later used to assess the impact of the intervention. The socioeconomic survey included demographic information, consumption and expenditures, and housing condition indicators including access to water, sanitation, electricity and cooking source, household assets, and health and education indicators. The health survey collected anthropometric measurements of children below five years of age at the date of the survey, including weight, height, and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC). Economic and health indicators were derived, including z-scores for weight for age (WAZ), height for age (HAZ), weight for height (WHZ), and mid-upper arm circumference (MUACZ). The paper describes the six groups of intervention and shows that there is no statistically significant difference between groups