Figure 3.

Change in urban advantage in children's height-for-age and weight-for-age Z scores between 1985 and 2011, by region

A point above the diagonal line means a larger improvement in urban areas than in rural areas; a point below the diagonal line indicates the opposite. The vertical and horizontal error bars show the 95% credible intervals. The figure excludes Oceania because its large credible intervals would reduce the visibility of data from other regions. The urban–rural differential in height-for-age Z score in Oceania was 0·56 (0·11–1·05) in 1985 and 0·57 (0·24–0·91) in 2011. The urban–rural differential in weight-for-age Z score in Oceania was 0·38 (0·12–0·68) in 1985 and 0·37 (0·15–0·61) in 2011. The global advantage is larger than all region-specific advantages because regions such as southern and tropical Latin America where children are tallest and heaviest are also those that are more heavily urbanised, whereas regions with the shortest and most underweight child populations are those that are more rural, such as south Asia (ie, the global results encompass both within-region and between-region differences).