Spatial distribution and determinants of stunting, wasting and underweight in children under-five in Ethiopia.
The burden of malnutrition in children under five remains an important child health issue where significant regional variations are observed in Ethiopia. The main aim of the current study was to explore the spatial distribution of stunting, wasting, and underweight in children under five in Ethiopia.
The secondary data from EDHS, 2016, was employed, and a total of 7960 under-five children were included in the analysis. The general spatial analysis was performed to explore the spatial distribution of malnutrition among under-five within and between the regions of Ethiopia. The Spatial Lag and Spatial Error models were used to examine the spatial dependence between stunting, wasting, and being underweight. The Geographically weighted regression analysis was performed to estimate the types and strength of relationships between malnutrition and associated determinant factors across the regions and within the clusters or Zones of each region.
Among the under-five children included in the study, 36.6% were stunted, 12.2% were wasted and 25.2% were underweight. The Global Moran Index's value indicates (Stunting, I = 0.3135, p-value < 0.00001, Wasting, I = 0.1948, p-value < 0.0001 and Underweight, I = 0.5291, p-value < 0.0001) that there was a significant spatial variation of malnutrition across the regions and Zones of Ethiopia. The significant source of spatial variation of malnutrition in children under five was associated with the mother's education level, drinking water facility, toilet facilities, number of children under-five in the household, household's wealth index, breastfeeding duration of the child, child size at birth, Body Mass Index of Mothers (BMI), region, and place of residence.
The spatial association and spatial patterns of stunting, wasting, and being underweight were clustered within and between the regions of Ethiopia. The hotspot areas of stunting, wasting, and being underweight were detected in the regions where there were poor health facilities and limited socioeconomic indicators.
Kuse KA
,Debeko DD
《BMC PUBLIC HEALTH》
Spatial trends and projections of chronic malnutrition among children under 5 years of age in Ethiopia from 2011 to 2019: a geographically weighted regression analysis.
Undernutrition is a serious global health issue, and stunting is a key indicator of children's nutritional status which results from long-term deprivation of basic needs. Ethiopia, the largest and most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa, has the greatest rate of stunting among children under the age of five, yet the problem is unevenly distributed across the country. Thus, we investigate spatial heterogeneity and explore spatial projection of stunting among under-five children. Further, spatial predictors of stunting were assessed using geospatial regression models.
The Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys (EDHS) data from 2011, 2016, and 2019 were examined using a geostatistical technique that took into account spatial autocorrelation. Ordinary kriging was used to interpolate stunting data, and Kulldorff spatial scan statistics were used to identify spatial clusters with high and low stunting prevalence. In spatial regression modeling, the ordinary least square (OLS) model was employed to investigate spatial predictors of stunting and to examine local spatial variations geographically weighted regression (GWR) and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models were employed.
Overall, stunting prevalence was decreased from 44.42% [95%, CI: 0.425-0.444] in 2011 to 36.77% [95%, CI: 0.349-0.375] in 2019. Across three waves of EDHS, clusters with a high prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years were consistently observed in northern Ethiopia stretching in Tigray, Amhara, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz. Another area of very high stunting incidence was observed in the Southern parts of Ethiopia and the Somali region of Ethiopia. Our spatial regression analysis revealed that the observed geographical variation of under-five stunting significantly correlated with poor sanitation, poor wealth index, inadequate diet, residency, and mothers' education.
In Ethiopia, substantial progress has been made in decreasing stunting among children under the age of 5 years; although disparities varied in some areas and districts between surveys, the pattern generally remained constant over time. These findings suggest a need for region and district-specific policies where priority should be given to children in areas where most likely to exhibit high-risk stunting.
Seboka BT
,Hailegebreal S
,Mamo TT
,Yehualashet DE
,Gilano G
,Kabthymer RH
,Ewune HA
,Kassa R
,Debisa MA
,Yawo MN
,Endashaw H
,Demeke AD
,Tesfa GA
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