Fig. 3. Incidence of stunting and mean LAZ by age and region.

a, Proportion of children experiencing incident stunting onset overall (n = 19–32 studies; n = 11,929–42,902 children) and stratified by region (Africa: n = 4–8 studies, n = 5,529–15,837 children; Latin America: n = 3–7 studies, n = 413–1,528 children; South Asia n = 11–17 studies, n = 4,514–17,802 children). ‘0–3’ includes the age of 2 days up to 3 months. Analyses include cohorts with at least quarterly measurements; vertical bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. Grey points indicate cohort-specific estimates. The median I² statistic measuring heterogeneity in each meta-analysis was 95 (interquartile range (IQR) = 77–98) overall, 85 (IQR = 83–97) in Africa, 67 (IQR = 45–87) in Latin America and 91 (IQR = 79–96) in South Asia. b, Mean LAZ stratified by age of incident stunting from birth to the age of 15 months (n = 21 cohorts that measured children at least monthly between birth and the age of 15 months, n = 11,243 children). Horizontal black lines indicate stunting the cutoff of −2 LAZ. ‘Never stunted’ includes children who did not become stunted by the age of 15 months. Pooled results were derived from random-effects models with restricted maximum-likelihood estimation. Thinner lines indicate cohort-specific estimates. The median I² statistic measuring heterogeneity in each meta-analysis was 91 (IQR = 83–96) overall, 85 (IQR = 63–94) in Africa, 94 (IQR = 88–96) in Latin America and 85 (IQR = 78–92) in South Asia. Extended Data Fig. 11 contains pooled means from b with 95% confidence intervals.