Factors associated with stunting among children according to the level of food insecurity in the household: a cross-sectional study in a rural community of Southeastern Kenya

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Junichi Tanaka¹  Mohamed Karama²  Satoshi Kaneko³  Chisa Shinsugi⁴  Masaki Matsumura⁵  Mwatasa Changoma⁶ 

[1] Department of Eco-epidemiology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, 852-8523, Nagasaki, Japan;Department of Nursing, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;Graduate School of International Health Development, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;Centre for Public Health Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Nairobi, Kenya;Graduate School of International Health Development, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;Department of Eco-epidemiology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, 852-8523, Nagasaki, Japan;Graduate School of International Health Development, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;Department of Human Ecology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;Graduate School of International Health Development, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;Liaison Center for International Education, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan;Nagasaki University Institute of Tropical Medicine (NUITM) - Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) Project, Nairobi, Kenya;

关键词: Child malnutrition;    Stunting;    Household food insecurity;    Africa;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-015-1802-6

 received in 2014-09-22, accepted in 2015-04-24,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChronic malnutrition or stunting among children under 5 years old is affected by several household environmental factors, such as food insecurity, disease burden, and poverty. However, not all children experience stunting even in food insecure conditions. To seek a solution at the local level for preventing stunting, a cross-sectional study was conducted in southeastern Kenya, an area with a high level of food insecurity.MethodsThe study was based on a cohort organized to monitor the anthropometric status of children. A structured questionnaire collected information on the following: demographic characteristics, household food security based on the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), household socioeconomic status (SES), and child health status. The associations between stunting and potential predictors were examined by bivariate and multivariate stepwise logistic regression analyses. Furthermore, analyses stratified by level of food security were conducted to specify factors associated with child stunting in different food insecure groups.ResultsAmong 404 children, the prevalence of stunting was 23.3%. The percentage of households with severe food insecurity was 62.5%. In multivariative analysis, there was no statistically significant association with child stunting. However, further analyses conducted separately according to level of food security showed the following significant associations: in the severely food insecure households, feeding tea/porridge with milk (adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR]: 3.22; 95% Confidence Interval [95% CI]: 1.43-7.25); age 2 to 3 years compared with 0 to 5 months old (aOR: 4.04; 95% CI: 1.01-16.14); in households without severe food insecurity, animal rearing (aOR: 3.24; 95% CI: 1.04-10.07); SES with lowest status as reference (aOR range: from 0.13 to 0.22). The number of siblings younger than school age was not significantly associated, but was marginally associated in the latter household group (aOR: 2.81; 95% CI: 0.92-8.58).ConclusionsOur results suggest that measures against childhood stunting should be optimized according to food security level observed in each community.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Shinsugi et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. 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.