Health and Nutrition
GRADE research in this area is focused on the analysis of issues such as the state of health and nutrition in Peru, how this related to social exclusion, socio-economic status and growth, as well as how it impacts on the ability of individuals and families to develop different capacities.
Senior Researchers
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Lorena Alcázar Valdivia
PhD en Economics - Washington University
Lorena has a BA in Economics from the Pacific University in Peru, a Master’s Degree in Political and International Economy from the Kiel Institute of World Economics, and a PhD in Economics from Washington University. She is currently a Senior Researcher at the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE). Previously, she served as Vice-President […]
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Alan Sánchez Jiménez
PhD en Economics - University of Oxford
Alan has a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. He also holds a master degree in Economics for Development from Oxford. Currently, he is a Senior Researcher at GRADE, a Senior Researcher at Young Lives Peru, and a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Department of International Development. He teaches on quantitative methodologies for impact […]
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Martín Valdivia Huaringa
PhD en Applied Economics - University of Minnesota
Martin Valdivia has a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota. He has worked as a Senior Researcher at GRADE since 1993. His fields of interest include entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, rural development and more recently democratic governance, with publications in journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Development […]
Research Assistants
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Dianela Espinoza Fernández
BA en -
Dianela is an economist from the University of Piura. At GRADE, she supports Alan Sanchez in the “Young Lives at Work” and “Nutrition, Lifestyle, Genes and Metabolome – A Biosocial Cohort Study of Obesity and its Consequences for Non-Communicable Diseases in Young Adults from Urban Peru” projects.
Project Support Staff
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Mónica Lizama Egoavil
Degree en - National Agrarian University
Mónica studied Statistical and Computer Science Engineer at the National University Agrarian La Molina. Currently she is the Data Manager for Young Lives in Peru. Before joining Young Lives, Mónica worked as a statistics assistant at the Peruvian National Institute of Statistics (INEI) and the International Nutrition Institute (IIN).
External Affiliated Researchers
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Jere R. Behrman
Ph.D. en - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Behrman is a leading international researcher in empirical microeconomics, with emphasis on developing economies. He is also a Research Associate at Penn’s Population Studies Center. His research interests include empirical microeconomics, labor economics, human resources (early childhood development, education, health, nutrition), project evaluation, economic demography, incentive systems and household behaviors. The unifying dimension of […]
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Marta Favara
PhD en - University of Essex
Marta is a Senior Researcher at the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford where she is leading the quantitative research agenda of Young Lives since 2015. She is also a Research Fellow at the Oxford Martin School Programme on African Governance and an IZA Research Affiliate. Before joining Young Lives, she […]
Publications
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Data matching: construction of COVID-19 – related variables for Young Lives Peru
2024 Alessandra Hidalgo, Alan Sanchez, Santos Zhu
This Technical Note outlines the COVID-19 matched dataset from the Young Lives cohorts in Peru created by the Young Lives team. The matched dataset combines COVID-19 administrative data with the extensive longitudinal data set from the Young Lives study in Peru. The authors document the steps taken to create a set of variables that measure […]
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JournalWorld Development
Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries
2024 Alan Sanchez, Marta Favara, Margaret Sheridan, Jere R. Behrman
The existing evidence linking early undernutrition to educational outcomes in developing countries is largely focused on assessing its impacts on grade attainment and achievement test scores, with limited evidence on the foundational cognitive skills required to perform well at school. We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives […]
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Building safer and more sustainable food systems in Peru
Stories of Change: Covid-19 Responses for Equity2023 Ricardo Fort, Karine Gatellier
The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the food insecurity situation of people living in Latin American cities. In Peru, the most vulnerable are facing great difficulties in accessing food, while food market vendors are also struggling to keep their businesses afloat. Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) partner Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) – a […]
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Inocuidad de la carne en los mercados de abasto: entradas para mejorar la gobernanza y vigilancia
2023 Giel Ton, Mauricio Espinoza, Eloy Gonzales
La carne que se vende en los mercados de abastos puede contener microorganismos patógenos que representan un riesgo para la salud de las personas. Este riesgo puede reducirse con mejores prácticas de higiene e inversiones en los mercados. La pandemia demostró que se pueden lograr mejoras, pero estas son costosas de implementar y mantener en […]
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JournalJournal of Health Economics
A drop of love? Rainfall shocks and spousal abuse: Evidence from rural Peru
2023 Juan Jose Diaz, Víctor Saldarriaga,
We investigate whether exposure to rainfall shocks affects the experience of physical intimate partner violence (P-IPV) among women in rural areas of the Peruvian Andes. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys over 2005–2014, we track changes in the probability that a woman experiences recent instances of P-IPV after being exposed to a rainfall […]
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Data matching: construction of COVID-19 – related variables for Young Lives Peru
2024
This Technical Note outlines the COVID-19 matched dataset from the Young Lives cohorts in Peru created by the Young Lives team. The matched dataset combines COVID-19 administrative data with the extensive longitudinal data set from the Young Lives study in Peru. The authors document the steps taken to create a set of variables that measure […]
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How early nutrition and foundational cognitive skills interconnect? Evidence from two developing countries
2022
We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives Study to investigate the relationship between early undernutrition and four foundational cognitive skills, the first two of which measure executive functioning: working memory, inhibitory control, long-term memory, and implicit learning. We exploit the rich longitudinal data available to control for […]
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How Early Nutrition and Foundational Cognitive Skills Interconnect? Evidence from Two Developing Countries
2022
While the long-term consequences of early stunting on educational attainment and on school achievement tests are well-known, there is scarce evidence about the specific mechanisms through which early stunting leads to poorer educational outcomes, especially in LMIC contexts. We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives to investigate […]
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Young lives, interrupted: Short‑term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents in low- and middleincome countries
2021
This study contributes to the understanding of how severely a cohort of adolescents have been impacted by the crisis, using comparable longitudinal data from four Low- and Middle- Income countries (LMICs) that have been very differently affected by the health crisis: Ethiopia, India (states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam. In particular, Peru […]
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COVID-19 Could Reverse Two Decades of Progress: Emerging Policy Recommendations to Support Young People in Developing Countries
2021
New research from the Young Lives COVID-19 phone survey in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam paints a worrying picture of how the economic and social impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and related restrictions could not only halt progress made over the last two generations, but could also reverse life chances and entrench existing inequalities for many […]
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JournalWorld Development
Does early nutrition predict cognitive skills during later childhood? Evidence from two developing countries
2024
The existing evidence linking early undernutrition to educational outcomes in developing countries is largely focused on assessing its impacts on grade attainment and achievement test scores, with limited evidence on the foundational cognitive skills required to perform well at school. We use unique data collected in Ethiopia and Peru as part of the Young Lives […]
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JournalJournal of Health Economics
A drop of love? Rainfall shocks and spousal abuse: Evidence from rural Peru
2023
We investigate whether exposure to rainfall shocks affects the experience of physical intimate partner violence (P-IPV) among women in rural areas of the Peruvian Andes. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys over 2005–2014, we track changes in the probability that a woman experiences recent instances of P-IPV after being exposed to a rainfall […]
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JournalFood Policy
Employment and wage effects of sugar-sweetened beverage taxes and front-of-package warning label regulations on the food and beverage industry: Evidence from Peru
2023
Peru increased its sugar-sweetened beverage tax by 8 percentage points (from 17% to 25%) in 2018 and in 2019 imposed front-of-package warning labels on processed and ultra-processed foods and beverages high in sugar, saturated fats, and sodium or containing trans fats. We assess the pre-COVID-19 impacts of these two policies on aggregate formal employment and […]
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JournalFrontiers in Nutrition
Development of an online food frequency questionnaire and estimation of misreporting of energy intake during the COVID-19 pandemic among young adults in Peru
2022
This study aims to describe the multi-stage process used to adapt a previously validated face-to-face Food Frequency Questionnaries (FFQ) of an online self-administered FFQ for young adults in Peru during the pandemic, including the selection of the food items, portion sizes, and food frequency response options. Furthermore, it aims at validating the FFQ by estimating the […]
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JournalPublic Health in Practice
The evolution of young people’s mental health during COVID-19 and the role of food insecurity: Evidence from a four low-and-middle-income-country cohort study
2022
Provide evidence on how young people’s mental health has evolved in Low-and-Middle-Income-Countries (LMICs) during the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic. Identify particularly vulnerable groups who report high and/or continuously high rates of mental health issues. Two consecutive phone-surveys (August–October and November–December 2020) in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam interviewed around 9000 participants of a 20-year […]
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Building safer and more sustainable food systems in Peru
Stories of Change: Covid-19 Responses for Equity2023
The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the food insecurity situation of people living in Latin American cities. In Peru, the most vulnerable are facing great difficulties in accessing food, while food market vendors are also struggling to keep their businesses afloat. Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) partner Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) – a […]
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El derecho a la alimentación en grupos en condición de vulnerabilidad
Derecho humano a la alimentación: entre la política pública y las decisiones judiciales2017
This study analyzes national policies to guarantee the right to food of vulnerable groups in Peru. This is based on the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security (hereinafter “Voluntary Guidelines”), and Inter-American standards on economic, social and cultural rights. The research […]
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El programa “Qali Warma” desde un enfoque de derechos humanos
Derecho a la alimentación en el contexto latinoamericano2017
This research seeks to approach the institutional design of the Qali Warma program under a human rights-based approach, identifying its constituent elements in order to be able to project them in future public food policies. In addition, the gaps or pending tasks for the full assumption of the approach will be pointed out. To this […]
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Algunas reflexiones sobre los programas alimentarios y nutricionales: cambios y retos durante la última década
Investigación para el desarrollo en el Perú: once balances2016
This article analyzes the state of nutritional and food social programs in Peru in light of what has been learned and observed over the past decade, and identifies the main challenges they still face. It follows from the study “Why do food and nutritional programs not work?” (Alcazar 2007), reviewing how these programs have changed […]
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Políticas de inversión pública y su impacto sobre el desarrollo rural: estrategias y mecanismos de implementación en la última década
Perú: el problema agrario en debate. Sepia XV2014Ricardo Fort,
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Inocuidad de la carne en los mercados de abasto: entradas para mejorar la gobernanza y vigilancia
2023
La carne que se vende en los mercados de abastos puede contener microorganismos patógenos que representan un riesgo para la salud de las personas. Este riesgo puede reducirse con mejores prácticas de higiene e inversiones en los mercados. La pandemia demostró que se pueden lograr mejoras, pero estas son costosas de implementar y mantener en […]
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El impacto del programa Juntos sobre la nutrición temprana
2013Miguel Jaramillo, Alan Sanchez,
A&P basado en los hallazgos más destacados del estudio de Miguel Jaramillo y Alan Sánchez, publicado en el DI 61 de GRADE y en la Revista Estudios Económicos 23 del BCR, "Impacto del programa Juntos sobre nutrición temprana"
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Transferencias y Condiciones: Efectos no previstos del Programa JUNTOS
2012Javier Escobal,
En el presente boletín se hace una revisión de la literatura existente sobre JUNTOS, así como de los resultados que Niños del Milenio viene presentando sobre el programa.
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¿Derecho vulnerado?: gratuidad de la educación pública, contribuciones económicas familiares y equidad / La medición de la calidad de vida en Lima Metropolitana
2008Martín Benavides, ,
¿Derecho vulnerado?: gratuidad de la educación pública, contribuciones económicas familiares y equidad / La medición de la calidad de vi
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Los Programas de Desayunos Escolares / El “benchmark” o análisis comparativo internacional
2001Santiago Cueto, ,
Los Programas de Desayunos Escolares / El "benchmark" o análisis comparativo internacional.
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¿Qué hemos aprendido del estudio longitudinal Niños del Milenio? Síntesis de hallazgos
2018
The Young Lives Peru Country Report presents a summary of the main findings that emerge from analysing the Young Lives data from Peru across a longitudinal study following two cohorts of children in various situations from remote rural areas to urban communities, as a component of a larger multicountry project. The study relates conditions early […]
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Investigación para el desarrollo en el Perú: once balances
2016
Este libro recoge los once balances de investigación presentados en la conferencia Avances Recientes en la Investigación y Políticas para el Desarrollo, organizada en el marco del 35 aniversario del Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE). Los textos de esta publicación buscan continuar satisfaciendo la demanda de conocimiento dirigida a sostener un debate más […]
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Towards an inclusive and sustainable development in Latin America: dialogue between research and public policies
2016
Esta publicación es resultado del seminario internacional Hacia un Desarrollo Inclusivo y Sostenible en América Latina: Diálogos entre Investigación y Políticas Públicas, organizado por el Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE) y el Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP), el 25 y 26 de junio de 2014. Representa un esfuerzo de recopilación de lo más relevante y valioso […]
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Inclusión social: diálogos entre la investigación y las políticas públicas
2014Martín Benavides, Miguel Jaramillo, Santiago Cueto, Gabriela Guerrero, Juan Leon, Nestor Valdivia, Lorena Alcazar, Manuel Glave, Maria Balarin, Juan Jose Diaz, Juana Kuramoto, Gerardo Damonte,
Esta publicación recoge el espíritu del seminario internacional "Cambios Institucionales para un Estado más Inclusivo" (julio de 2012), y apunta a lo más relevante y valioso de cada exposición, intervención y comentario.
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The economic impact of anaemia in Peru
2013Lorena Alcazar,
The aim of this study is to identify and estimate the economic costs for the Peruvian state and economy caused by the current prevalence of iron-deficiency anaemia among adults; to estimate the future economic costs for the Peruvian economy of the current prevalence of anaemia among children and to estimate the
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A Drop of Love? Rainfall Shocks and Spousal Abuse: Evidence from Rural Peru
2020
The authors investigate whether the exposure to rainfall shocks affects the experience of physical intimate partner violence by women in rural areas of the Peruvian Andes. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys over the period 2005-2014, they track changes in women’s experience of physical IPV following the exposure to rainfall shocks during the […]
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(Un)Conditional Love in the Time of Conditional Cash Transfers: The Effect of the Peruvian JUNTOS Program on Spousal Abuse
2020
Cash Transfer programs often target women as the recipient of the money. Unintentionally, this flow of unearned income may reduce spousal abuse. Researchers investigate this possibility by assessing the Peruvian JUNTOS program. They exploit the staggered timing in the rollout of the program across municipalities along with its eligibility rule for determining participation to perform a difference-in-differences […]
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Efectos del programa de transferencias condicionadas JUNTOS en el peso al nacer de los niños.
2014Juan Jose Diaz,
This paper assesses the effect of the Conditional Cash Transfer Program, JUNTOS, on neonatal health of children who were exposed to the Program while in utero. The paper also explores whether JUNTOS has improved the prenatal health care of pregnant women. Different estimation techniques are implemented, including difference-in-differences, maternal fixed effects, and instrumental variables approaches. […]
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Pre-school Education and Schooling Outcomes in Peru
2006Juan Jose Diaz,
This paper examines the relationship between child schooling and achievement outcomes and attendance at pre-school education, monitoring socio-economic status (SES), parenting practices, and parent education.
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Projects
- Impacts of the tax policies in health and nutrition indicatorsApril 2024
- The Making of a Public Sector Worker: The Causal Effects of Temporary Work Assignments to Poor AreasSeptember 2023
- Healthy taxes and tobacco consumption in PeruSeptember 2022
- Methodological note for the impact evaluation of district home visits for the reduction of anaemia in childrenDecember 2019
- Analysis of factors associated with overweight and obesity and validation of the instrument of frequency and quantity of food consumptionOctober 2019
- Estimating the illicit cigarettes consumption in PeruApril 2021
- The influence of executive functions in the mental health of vulnerable adolescents: a multi-site focus and of low- and medium-income countriesOctober 2018
- Relationship between adolescent pregnancy and adolescent maternity and educational and labor outcomes: an approach based on ENDES dataMay 2018
- Prices, taxes and tobacco consumption in PeruAugust 2017
- Young Lives Peru 2017-2018April 2017
News
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Eduardo Zegarra opina sobre la Inseguridad Alimentaria en el Perú
October 16, 2024 Health and nutrition
Sorry, this entry is only available in European Spanish.
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[Call] 2024 Methodological Workshop on the use of data from the Young Lives Longitudinal Study
January 18, 2024 Education and learning, Methodologies for research and evaluation of policy and programmes, Poverty and equality, Health and nutrition
El taller anual de Niños del Milenio busca brindar las herramientas necesarias para que profesionales, que estén cursando sus maestrías o doctorados, aprendan a usar, descargar y analizar los datos que recolecta el estudio. El principal objetivo es aumentar el interés en la producción de trabajos de investigación con aquellos que desean utilizar los datos de […]
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Eduardo Zegarra on A Pensar Más with Rosa María Palacios: an outlook of Peruvian agriculture and food price increases
September 5, 2023 Rural development and agriculture, Health and nutrition
“Basically three processes have aggravated the agricultural crisis. First COVID, then the fertilizer crisis, very poorly managed, and the last has been the climate crisis, with a drought in the highlands and the coastal El Niño. If you add all this up, agricultural production has fallen 5% in the first six months of this year, […]
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Eduardo Zegarra’s interview with EESP Pukllasunchis on the threats and opportunities of transgenics
August 28, 2023 Health and nutrition
“The ancestral knowledge of producers comes from many generations of trial and error: managing crops so that they adapt adequately to the climate, to the fertility and capacities of the soil, or to the availability of water. This knowledge is often more useful in generating a portfolio of crops that are more protective against climate […]
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Commentaries by Martín Valdivia on the illicit cigarettes market in Peru
June 26, 2023 Health and nutrition
“To claim that 62.2 % of the cigarettes sold in the national market are of ilicit origin as a result of taxes, is to want to overturn the tax policy for the control of tobacco consumption”. Read the commentaries by Martín Valdivia, Senior Researcher at GRADE, on the recent report by the consulting firm Euromonitor, […]
Events
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Alan Sanchez presented study on early nutrition and cognitive skills at Fundación Éxito event in Colombia
28/08/2024 Medellín, Colombia Health and nutrition
“Stunting measured at age 5 years is associated with lower working memory and inhibitory control between 8 and 12 years in Peru and Ethiopia”. On August 28, our Senior Researcher Alan Sanchez was a speaker at the 21st Child Nutrition Award, organized by Fundación Éxito in Colombia. Using longitudinal data from Niños del Milenio/Young Lives, […]
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Eduardo Zegarra participated in a discussion of the Lima Network of Common Pots (Red de Ollas Comunes de Lima)
02/07/2024 3:00 pm Facebook de la Red de Ollas Comunes de Lima Health and nutrition
Our Senior Researcher Eduardo Zegarra was a speaker at the conference Hunger does not wait. This event, organized by the Red de Ollas Comunes de Lima, seeks to discuss the importance of articulating agricultural policies and food policies with a nutritional approach to ensure the right to food. LIVE BROADCAST Follow the live broadcast on […]
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World No Tobacco Day: Martín Valdivia presented a study on the effectiveness of tax policy in Peru 2023
31/05/2023 9:40 am - 10:00 am Auditorio de GRADE (Av. Grau 915, Barranco) Health and nutrition
What does the evidence tell us about the effectiveness of tobacco excise tax increases in Peru? In the framework of World No Tobacco Day, our Senior Researcher Martín Valdivia presented the findings and policy implications of his recent study on the effectiveness of tax policy for tobacco control in our country. TAKEAWAYS Check a thread […]
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Young Lives Peru will share the advaces of its Study of Obesity, Nutrition, Genes and Social factors (SONGS)
16/03/2023 9:00 am - 11:00 am Auditorio y Zoom de GRADE Poverty and equality, Health and nutrition
Obesity is a rapidly growing public health issue worldwide. However, evidence of the relationship between the progression of obesity and the development of non-communicable diseases in Peru is limited. The Young Lives Longitudinal Study will present the advaces of its Study of Obesity, Nutrition, Genes and Social factors (SONGS), which aims to introduce new empirical […]
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Seminario internacional Estrategias comunitarias contra el hambre en pandemia: experiencias de Perú, Chile y Uruguay
22/11/2022 9:00 am - 11:00 am Zoom y Facebook de GRADE Poverty and equality, Health and nutrition
The Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE) and the Latin American Center for Rural Development (RIMISP) held the International Seminar Community Strategies against the Hunger in Pandemic: experiences from Peru, Chile and Uruguay The virtual seminar proposed to advance in the design of proposals and recommendations on the functioning of common pots, popular pots and other community […]
- Education and Learning
- Employment, Productivity and Innovation
- Rural Development and Agriculture
- Ethnicity, Gender and Citizenship
- Methodologies for Research and Evaluation of Policy and Programmes
- Poverty and Equity
- Natural Resources, Extractive Industries and Social Conflict
- State Reform and Public Institutions
- Health and Nutrition
- Urbanization and Sustainable Cities
