Determinants of severity levels of anemia among children aged 6–59 months in Ethiopia: further analysis of the 2011 Ethiopian demographic and health survey

Abstract

Childhood anemia is the major public health problem in Ethiopia. It has been implicated with growth retardation, impaired motor and cognitive development, and childhood morbidity and mortality. Thus this study aimed to identify determinants of severity levels of anemia in children aged 6 to 59 months in Ethiopia. The study was further analysis of the 2011 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey. A total of 7636 children aged 6 to 59 months with complete information on the selected predictors were included in the analysis. Proportional odds model of ordinal logistic regression was used to identify determinant factors. Chi-square test of parallelism was used to evaluate the appropriateness of proportional odds assumption. A p -value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. The Chi-square test of parallelism showed that the odds ratios were constant across all cut-off points of childhood anemia status at 5 % level ( p -value = 0.071). Of the total children sampled, 28.6 and 21.7 % of them were severely/moderately and mildly anemic, respectively. Wasting, Stunting, religion, and age of the child, current employment status of the mother, educational status of the partner, number of under-5 children in the household, source of drinking water and mother’s anemia status were found to be statistically significant determinants of severity levels of childhood anemia. The likelihoods of being severely/moderately anemic as compared to being mildly/non-anemic, and being severely/moderately/mildly anemic as compared to being non-anemic were similar for a given variable keeping all others. Long term and short term nutritional status of young aged children, access to health and nutritional education, and access to safe drinking water should be improved by the concerned body.