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Nutrition

The Economist Writes About REAP's Nutrition Project

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"Growth has helped millions to avoid malnutrition but it still threatens to hold back a generation of rural Chinese."

A recent article in The Economist about malnutrition in rural China cites REAP's research on anemia.

“The propaganda message, scrawled in white paint on the side of a wood-frame house, could hardly be more blunt: ‘Cure stupidity, cure poverty’. The cure for both, in one of China’s poorest counties, seems to be a daily nutritional supplement for children. At a pre-school centre in Songjia, as in more than 600 other poor villages across China, children aged three to six gather to get the stuff with their lunch. If China is to narrow its urban-rural divide, thousands more villages will need to do this much, or more....

"'Babies are probably 50% malnourished' in poor rural areas, says Scott Rozelle, co-director of the Rural Education Action Programme (REAP), a research outfit at Stanford University which has done extensive tests on anaemia in rural China. 'But almost no mums are malnourished.' Mr Rozelle says that in one of his surveys rural mothers showed a better understanding of how to feed pigs than babies: 71% said pigs need micronutrients, whereas only 20% said babies need them."

Read more here.

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Stanford Scope Reports on REAP's Solutions to Childhood Anemia

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REAP's efforts on childhood anemia were featured in an article in Scope, an award-winning medical blog produced by writers at Stanford University School of Medicine.

"How can health and nutrition education needs in rural China be addressed? Start by examining infant-feeding practices.

"Scott Rozelle, PhD, director of the Rural Education Action Program, part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford, conducted a study on 1,800 babies in China’s Shaanxi province to address high rates of anemia and cognitive delays in children owing to poor nutrition, though not necessarily lack of funds for healthy food...The study is ongoing through April, 2015, but 12 months into the program, the researchers have found that the supplements have reduced anemia rates by 28 percent..." 

Read the article here

Read more about REAP's study on anemia here

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272- Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Southwestern China: Links to Cognitive Ability, Nutrition, and School Performance among Children

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Empirical evidence suggests that the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections in remote and poor rural areas is still high among children, the most vulnerable to infection. There is concern that STH infections may detrimentally affect children’s healthy development, including their cognitive ability, nutritional status, and school performance. Medical studies have not yet identified the exact nature of the impact STH infections have on children. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between STH infections and developmental outcomes in 2,180 school-aged children in seven nationally-designated poverty counties in rural China. We conducted a large-scale survey in Guizhou province in southwest China in May, 2013. Overall, 42 percent of elementary school-aged children were infected with one or more of the three types of STH—Ascarislumbricoides (ascaris), Trichuris trichuria (whipworm) and the hookworms Ancylostoma duodenaleor Necator americanus. After controlling for socioeconomic status, we observed that children infected with one or more STHs have worse cognitive ability, worse nutritional status, and worse school performance than their uninfected peers.

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Alexis Medina
Scott Rozelle

Jenny Bowen: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains

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Jenny Bowen is the founder and chief executive officer of Half the Sky Foundation, which strives to enrich the lives of orphaned children in China. A former screenwriter and independent filmmaker, Bowen founded Half the Sky in 1998 in order to give something back to her adopted daughters’ home country and to the many children then languishing behind institutional walls. Half the Sky’s five innovative programs now provide nurturing, family-like care for thousands of children of all ages. In partnership with China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, Half the Sky has embarked on a groundbreaking Integrated National Training Plan that will eventually make the Half the Sky approach the approved national standard of care for all children in the welfare system.

In 2008, Bowen received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She serves on China’s National Committee for Orphans and Disabled Children and on the Expert Consultative Committee for Beijing Normal University’s Philanthropy Research Institute. She is the author of the recently released memoir, Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains.

About REAP

The Rural Education Action Program (REAP) at Stanford is an impact evaluation organization that aims to inform sound education, health and nutrition policy in China. REAP’s goal is to help students from vulnerable communities in China enhance their human capital and overcome obstacles to education so that they can escape poverty and better contribute to China’s developing economy.

The author will be available to sign copies of her book after the event.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jenny Bowen Founder of Half the Sky Foundation Speaker

Scott Rozelle

Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
scott_rozelle_new_headshot.jpeg PhD

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

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Faculty affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
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