Research Article Effectors of income-child health gradient: Role of dietary diversity on child nutritional status in selected slums of Dhaka city Sazia Mahmood, Mahbuba Kawser, Shamima Akther and Abu Torab M A Rahim * Institute of Nutrition and Food Science (INFS), University of Dhaka, Dhaka ARTICLE INFO Article History Received: 30 April 2021 Revised: 20 May 2021 Accepted: 31 May 2021 Keywords: Dietary Diversity, Malnutrition, Urban Slum Children, Odds Ratio. ABSTRACT Child dietary diversity (CDD) is an important nutritional outcome measuring the economic ability of a household to access a variety of foods during a determined period. Relating household income to CDD and child anthropometric failure, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 275 selected Dhaka city slum children of 6-12 years. Prevalence of stunting (18%), wasting (19.4%), and underweight (22%) among them were found similar to the current national figure. However, a sizable number of households showed increased DDS (>5), thereby indicating an increased household purchasing power (PP). Bivariate regression analysis showed that children from lower family income (≤6000 BDT) were 3 times more likely to be stunted as compared to children with greater family income [Unadjusted OR=3.097, 95% CI (1.578-6.077), p=0.001]. Furthermore, logistic regression showed that children who had <5 DDS were 2 times more likely to be stunted than children who had ≥5 DDS [Adjusted OR=2.127, 95% CI (1.051- 4.305), p=0.036]. Therefore, an inverse association has been found between CDD and their anthropometric failure. Introduction *Corresponding author:<torabrahim@du.ac.bd> Journal of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences Journal homepage: http://www.bas.org.bd/publications/jbas.html J. Bangladesh Acad. Sci. 45(1); 85-94: June 2021 DOI: 10.3329/jbas.v45i1.54262 45 Dietary diversity (DD) is usually assessed using simple tools such as the dietary diversity score (DDS), which counts the number of food groups consumed over a given reference period. Hence, DDS is a helpful evaluation index to assess and predict the adequacy of micronu- trient consumption of children (FAO 2013), which is reported to be associated with malnutrition. Furthermore, low DD is found to be a predictor of child stunting in rural Bangladesh (Rah et al., 2016). Bangladesh is now the 41 st largest economy in the World's GDP ranking and 29 th largest coun- try by purchasing power parity (PPP) (CEBR, 2019). Nine percent of the population of Bang- ladesh resides in Dhaka city, but its contribution to GDP is 36% (Ahmed & Ahmed 2017), indicating a vast production activity here, which reduces the slum poverty in terms of income parity. On the other hand, the reflection of purchasing power is manifested by the huge availability of fruits, vegetables, and fishes in almost every rural and urban Bangladesh market. Dietary diversity, i.e., consumption of a higher and diverse number of food items from different food groups by urban slums-dwellers, is expected to be increased due to their increased purchasing power, which is a consequence of a