Prevalence and determinants of stunting in under-five children in central Tanzania: remaining threats to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4
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Date
2015
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
BMC public health
Abstract
Background: The Millennium Development Goal No 4 (MDG 4) requires countries to scale up interventions addressing
malnutrition and other immediate determinants of burden of disease among children to reduce child mortality by two
thirds by 2015, which is this year. Whereas globally some achievements have been registered, under-nourishment
remains a significant problem in some developing countries such as Tanzania. This study set out to estimate the extent
of stunting and its associated determinants to assess the progress made thus far towards achieving MDG 4 in Tanzania.
Methods: A random sample of 678 households with under-five children was selected from two randomly selected
wards of Kongwa district in Dodoma region, Tanzania. The WHO anthropometric calculator, which computes Z-scores
using a reference population, was used to process the anthropometric measurement data taken from all the participants.
Children with height for age Z-score of less than 2 were categorised as stunted and coded as 1 and the rest were coded
as 0. Proportions of stunting were compared using the chi-square test to determine the association between stunting
and the independent variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the Adjusted Odds
Ratio (AOR) of the independent determinants of stunting. The cut-off for significant association was set at p =0.05. All
these analyses used the STATA 12 software.
Results: About half (49.7 %) of the children were stunted. This stunting was associated with belonging to households
where the head of family was young (<35 years) (AOR = 0.67, 95 % CI 0.47–0.96, p = 0.031), young age of the mothers
(AOR = 1.54, 95 % CI 1.06–2.24, p = 0.023), and economic variables such as owning a cellular phone (AOR = 0.66, 96 % CI
0.46–0.94, p = 0.023).
Conclusions: Stunting was highly prevalent in Kongwa district despite general improvements in child nutritional status
at the national level. Household characteristics and economic status were found to play a major role in child health. In
this regard, disaggregated analyses are therefore important in identifying resilient areas in need of concerted efforts for
theMDG4tobeachievednationwide.
Description
Keywords
Stunting, Child malnutrition, Millennium development goals
Citation
Semali, I.A., Tengia-Kessy, A., Mmbaga, E.J. and Leyna, G., 2015. Prevalence and determinants of stunting in under-five children in central Tanzania: remaining threats to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4. BMC public health, 15(1), p.1153.