Rahman, Azizur, Othman, Nezza, Kuddus, Md Abdul, and Hasan, Md Zobaer (2024) Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child malnutrition in Selangor, Malaysia: A pilot study. Journal of Infection and Public Health, 17. pp. 833-842.

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Abstract

Background: Child malnutrition risk factors are globally recognized, but the specific impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of child malnutrition, considering socioeconomic burdens and changes in family lifestyles, remains underexplored. This study aims to identify the significance of COVID-19-related factors in relation to the prevalence of child malnutrition in Selangor, Malaysia.

Methods: Purposive sampling was employed in this pilot study to select the households with under-5 children and, a structured questionnaire was developed to gather data. Chi-squared tests, logistic regression modelling and World Health Organisation AnthroPlus software-based visualization were used for analyses.

Results: The present study’s findings indicate that demographic and social factors, including 'Citizenship,' 'Type of House,' 'Number of Earning Members,' 'Father's Highest Educational Level,' and 'Number of Children in a Family,' have a statistically significant association with Wasting. Additionally, the mother's 'Highest Educational Level' is found to be linked to underweight prevalence. Within COVID-19 factors, "COVID-19 Impact on Employment/Business" demonstrated significance for both stunting and wasting. Multivariate analysis revealed disparities in childhood malnutrition by gender, age, and factors such as "COVID-19 impact on children's physical activity" and "COVID-19 impact on children's decrease in health over the last two weeks."

Conclusions: This study identified COVID-19 factors alongside sociodemographic variables with statistically significant relationships impacting childhood malnutrition in Selangor, Malaysia. The results underscored the substantial influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on child malnutrition prevalence. Decision-makers at family and community levels can benefit by considering these factors in their actions. However, the study's limitation lay in its dataset, urging larger-scale analyses to explore further sub-categories of the examined variables.

Item ID:	85884
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1876-035X
Copyright Information:	© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Date Deposited:	18 Jun 2025 01:22
FoR Codes:	42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420601 Community child health @ 30% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 70%
SEO Codes:	20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200410 Nutrition @ 100%
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