- Title
- Stunting and severe stunting among children under-5 years in Nigeria: a multilevel analysis
- Creator
- Akombi, Blessing Jaka; Agho, Kingsley Emwinyore; Hall, John Joseph; Merom, Dafna; Astell-Burt, Thomas; Renzaho, Andre M. N.
- Relation
- BMC Pediatrics Vol. 17, no. 115
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12887-016-0770-z
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Background: Stunting has been identified as one of the major proximal risk factors for poor physical and mental development of children under-5 years. Stunting predominantly occurs in the first 1000 days of life (0-23 months) and continues to the age of five. This study examines factors associated with stunting and severe stunting among children under-5 years in Nigeria. Methods: The sample included 24,529 children aged 0-59 months from the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). Height-for-age z-scores (HFAz), generated using the 2006 World Health Organisation (WHO) growth ref erence, were used to define stunting (HFAz < -2SD) and severe stunting (HFAz < -3SD). Multilevel logistic regression analyses that adjusted for cluster and survey weights were used to determine potential risk factors associated with stunting and severe stunting among children under-5 years in Nigeria. Results: The prevalence of stunting and severe stunting were 29% [95% Confidence interval (Cl): 27.4, 30.8] and 16.4% [95%Cl: 15.1, 17.8] , respectively for children aged 0-23 months, and 36.7% [95%Cl: 35.1, 38.3] and 21% [95%Cl: 19.7, 22.4] , respectively for children aged 0-59 months. Multivariate analysis revealed that the most consistent significant risk factors for stunting and severe stunting among children aged 0-23 months and 0-59 months are: sex of child (male), mother's perceived birth size (small and average), household wealth index (poor and poorest households), duration of breastfeeding (more than 12 months), geopolitical zone (North East, North West, North Central) and children who were reported to having had diarrhoea in the 2 weeks prior to the survey [Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) for stunted children 0-23 months = 1.22 (95%Cl: 0.99, 1.49)];[AOR for stunted children 0-59 months = 1.31 (95%Cl: 1.16, 1.49)] , [AOR for severely stunted children 0-23 months = 1.31 (95%Cl: 1.03, 1.67)]; [AOR for severely stunted children 0-59 months = 1.58 (95%Cl: 1.38, 1.82)] . Conclusions: In order to meet the post-2015 sustainable development goals, policy interventions to reduce stunting in Nigeria should focus on poverty alleviation as well as improving women's nutrition, child feeding practices and household sanitation.
- Subject
- stunting; severe stunting; Nigeria; public health; malnutrition; multilevel analysis
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1352951
- Identifier
- uon:30993
- Identifier
- ISSN:1471-2431
- Rights
- This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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Goal 2: Zero Hunger
Goal 1: No Poverty
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