Risk Factors in Childhood Malnutrition Genale Awraja South East Ethiopia
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Date
1988-02
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The nutritional status of a homogenous rural Ethiopian community was
st udi ed. A tota l of 1020 children. 498 (48.8% boys & 522 (51.2%) girls ill the
age group 6-59 months participated in the study. Factors that may possibly be
involved in protein energy malnutrition were studied. As age of study children
was difficult to determine to the exact month the' re l atively age indepe ndent
anthropometric index weight for he i ght was used. III all cases bivariate
analyses was done. 302 (29. 6%) of the study children were found to be below
-2 Z-SCORE of the NCHS weight for h ei~.t refere nce. There was no difference in
the prevalence of malnutrition in the two sexes . However, boys were heRvier &
t aller than girls. Socia- demographic variables like I,.come, family size,
polygamy, membership of the family to a farmers' producers co- operatives and
maternal literacy did not show any correlation with the nutritional status of
the child. Having more t han one child in the age group 6- 59 months old in a
family predicted malnutrition. Duration of breast feeding was shown to be
inversly related to nutritional status. Recent illnesses of diarrhoea, fever &
cough were strongly associated with poor nutritional status. Two hudred
fifteen (21.1%) of the study children were cOlnpletely imml.nizcd
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Keywords
Malnutrition