Availability of Adequately Iodized Salt at Household Level and Its Associated Factors in Horro Woreda, Horro Guduru Wollega Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) is one of the biggest worldwide public health problems of today. Even if the coverage of iodized salt in Ethiopia is irregularly increasing, the coverage of households that use adequately iodized salt in different rural communities of Ethiopia was low. A community based cross sectional study was designed to assess availability of adequately iodized salt at household level and its associated factors in Horro woreda, Oromia regional state, Ethiopia from February to March, 2018. Data was collected using a structured and pretested questionnaire. Multistage sampling technique was used to select households and data were analyzed using SPSS v. 20. Variables having p<0.25 in the bivariate logistic regression were entered into multivariate logistic regression analysis and finally, variables having p< 0.05 and 95% confidence internal (CI) were considered as significantly associated. The finding of this study revealed that about 23.6% respondents were utilized adequately iodized. The study also found that the knowledge and practice among participants was 63.8% and 60%, respectively. Moreover, access to information AOR (95% CI)=2.5 (1.1-5.55), wealth status AOR (95% CI)=4.7 (2.5-8.83), knowledge about the benefits of iodized salt AOR (95% CI)=1.4 (1.6-2.08) and salt storage place AOR (95% CI)=4.2 (2.33-13.54) were significantly associated with availability of adequately iodized salt during multivariate analysis. This study concluded that the proportion of households covered by adequately iodized salt in rural communities of the study was very low (23.6%) compared to the internationally recommended value to control iodine deficiency disorder (90%). Therefore, nutrition interventions through behavioral change communication (BCC) towards adequately iodized salt utilization and its practice should be strengthen by all concerned bodies to increase its coverage and to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders in rural communities of the study area.