Despite overall health indicators being on track to achieve the 2015 MDGs, malnutrition continues to be a serious health concern in Sri Lanka. Prevalence of child and maternal malnutrition is almost double in the estate sector compared to the country average. Thus, this study attempts to contribute to
policies on priority areas needing to be addressed in breaking the vicious cycle of malnutrition in the estate sector.
The study used Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) -2006/07 of Sri Lanka as the primary source of data. The research adopted probit analysis in order to identify the determinants of child and maternal
malnutrition in the estate sector. According to the findings, major aspects of estate sector child and maternal malnutrition was due to
many inter-related factors, ranging from life cycle of malnutrition, food insecurity, alcoholism, poor socio-economic conditions and also lack of women’s education and knowledge.
