Abstract

In this research acute malnutrition (AM) and household income (HI) are investigated. Historically, governorates of Iraq suffered inequality in AM and HI for several reasons, such as government's focus on heart of city in specific governorates; like Baghdad, Basra, and Nineveh. Question is raised whether the spatial patterns of AM and HI are existed in Iraq? If so, can the pattern of HI explain the pattern of AM?

The present paper investigates the spatial structure of AM across different governorates in Iraq and its spatial correlation to HI. This investigation will provide implications for policy makers, finding local clusters and showing visual picture for each of AM and HI.

The study utilizes a cross-sectional survey data collected in 2004 for 18 governorates. Mapping is used as the first step to conduct visual inspection for AM and HI using quartiles. Several spatial econometric techniques are available in the literature, which deal with the spatial autocorrelation in geographically referenced data. Two statistics of spatial autocorrelation, based on sharing boundary neighbours, known as global and local Moran's \textit{I}, are carried out. Wartenberg's measure is used to detect bivariate spatial correlation.

In conclusion, based on visual inspection of mapping, global clustering in high level of AM and low level of HI were in general concentrated in western-southern governorates. This global clustering for AM was confirmed by significant global Moran's\textit{ I }statistic, but was not confirmed for HI\textit{.} Out of 18 governorates, three and one governorates were found as local clusters in AM and HI respectively based on local Moran's \textit{I${}_{i}$}. Bivariate spatial correlation between AM and HI was not found significant.

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