The finding
It wasn't trade.
- countries in the model
- 167
- countries in the model
- explanations tested
- 9
- explanations tested
- held up
- 4
- held up
2nd placeWomen in Data Datathon · "What's Cooking?" · 2026
Slow Cooked
Does relying on imported food leave women anemic? We spent three weeks testing that idea across more than 160 countries, then turned the analysis into an interactive story with a live model anyone can run.
- My role
- Statistical analysis: finding the gaps in the data and testing which assumptions held up and which failed.
- The question
- Anemia among women aged 15–49 rose in 123 of 162 countries since 2010. Our hypothesis: countries that import more of their food give women a less nutritious diet.
- What we built
- An interactive data story with a live regression model. Pick a country, change how starchy the diet is, how much food is imported, and how rich the country is, and watch the estimated share of anemic women move.
- What we found
- Import dependence doesn't predict anemia. Starch-heavy diets, malaria, and the form of iron people eat matter far more. We tested nine explanations; four held and five collapsed, and we kept the failures visible because they rule out the easy story.
- Python
- Regression modeling
- FAOSTAT
- World Bank
- WHO & DHS data
- Interactive web story
Team of four
Open the live project