High-risk fertility behaviour and undernutrition among children under-five in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-sectional study
Seidu, Abdul-Aziz, Hagan, John Elvis, Budu, Eugene, Aboagye, Richard Gyan, Okyere, Joshua, Sakyi, Barbara, Adu, Collins, and Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku (2023) High-risk fertility behaviour and undernutrition among children under-five in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-sectional study. BMJ Open, 13 (6). e066543.
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Abstract
Objective: The study examined high-risk fertility behaviour and its association with under-five undernutrition in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Design: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of data from 32 sub-Saharan African countries' Demographic and Health Surveys. A weighted sample of 110 522 mother-child pairs was included in final analysis. Multilevel binary logistic regression was used to examine the association between high-risk fertility behaviour and undernutrition. The results were presented using adjusted odds ratio (aOR) with their respective 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
Setting: Thirty-two countries in SSA.
Outcome measure: Stunting, wasting, and underweight.
Results: The pooled prevalence of stunting was 31.3%, ranging from 15.0% in Gabon to 51.7% in Burundi. Wasting was highest among children from Burkina Faso (19.1%) and lowest among those from South Africa (1.6%). The overall prevalence of wasting was 8.1%. The prevalence of underweight was 17.0%, with the highest among children in Niger (37.1%) and lowest in South Africa (4.8%). Mothers who gave birth at the age less than 18 years and those with short birth interval were more likely to have their children being stunted, wasted, and underweight. The odds of stunting and wasting were high among children born to women with high parity. However, maternal age at birth more than 34 was associated with lower odds of childhood underweight as against those with age at birth less than 34.
Conclusion: Countries in SSA are encouraged to address the issue of maternal age at birth less than 18, high parity, and shorter birth intervals in order to meet the Global Nutrition targets, which aim to achieve a 40% reduction in the number of stunted children under the age of 5 and to reduce and maintain childhood wasting to less than 5% by 2025.
| Item ID: | 79498 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2044-6055 |
| Keywords: | Community child health, Nutrition, Public Health |
| Copyright Information: | © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. |
| Research Data: | https://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Jan 2024 01:07 |
| FoR Codes: | 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200506 Neonatal and child health @ 100% |
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