r.i.c.e.

Clever title aside, Victoria Fan and Rifaiyat Mahbub of the Centre for Global Development discuss the overlaps between an older paper by Shroff et al and a more recent one by Arabinda Ghosh and r.i.c.e researchers, both explaining the differences in health outcomes between West Bengal and Bangladesh.

Fan and Mahbub end with:

And yet both our study and this newer study seem to be deficient and complement each other. Our study did not account for the nutritional status of women or the problem of open defecation in trying to understand differences in health indicators across West Bengal and Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the recent study stopped short of disentangling oral rehydration therapy and immunization.

More research that increases the scope of these two studies and examines the combination of the factors explored in two works discussed needs to be undertaken. Drawing on these natural experiments is also a fruitful area for research – the Two Bengals, Two Punjabs, two Germanys, two Koreas, two Chinas, etc. Any takers, public health students?

We are all for more research on this topic, and we are definitely all for taking advantage of more natural experiments!