Factors Affecting Weight-for-age Status Children in Ethiopia
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Date
2013-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Weight-for-age is a nutritional status indicator of malnutrition (acute or chronic) based on
the principle that a chi ld has an expected weight for hi s/her age and measures the general
nutritional status of chi ldren. According to the 20 II EDHS repOit by the Central CSA of
Ethiopia, nationally, 29 percent of chi ldren under the age of five are underweight, and 9
percent of children are severely underweight. The main objective of this study was to
identify and describe factors affecting the weight-for-age status of children in Ethiopia.
The study was based on the 20 11 EDHS conducted by CSA. Descriptive, standard
logistic regression and multilevel logistic regression analyses were used. The logistic
regression analysis was carried out to investigate the effect of predicator variables on the
weight-for-age status of a child. Accordingly, Age of child, Source of drinking water,
Types of toilet facilities, Mother's educational level, Employment status of mothers,
Wealth index, Place of residence, experiencing diarrhea, Fever and Cough in the two
weeks before the survey, Educational level of partner and Geographical region were
found to be important determinants of weight-for-age status of under-five chi ldren in
Ethiopia. Moreover, the variab les that were reported to be significant in the ordinary
logi stic regression analysis were also found to be significant in the multilevel logistic
regression analysis. The effect of most of these significant variables was the same for
each region in Ethiopia but the effect of Employment status of mothers and economic
status (wealth index) was not the same for all regions in Ethiopia.
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Keywords
Status Chi ldren in Ethiopia