Factors affecting malnutrition in developing countries: A linear mixed effect model approach

The main objective of this study is to pinpoint the main factors that affect the percentage who suffers of malnutrition in developing countries. three locations are randomly chosen: asia,africa,and middle east and north africa (mena); a total of 96 countries were chosen randomly from 137 developing countries of the three locations; and were cross classified by location and human development index (hdi) as high,middle,and low (undp,2005)i. data for the study was compiled from fao (2005)ii. the analysis started with seven explanatory variables and the dependent variable; however,stepwise regression reveals that the average protein intake and infant mortality rate were the only two significant variables. location and hdi are dummy coded and ols regression is performed using the two significant variables,but the only significant variable was the average protein intake. ols multiple regression model is re-applied to the data using dummy variables technique with interaction with the average protein intake