Nutritional status and environmental and health conditions of Pataxó indigenous children, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

Abstract

To describe the nutritional status and the environmental and health conditions of the Pataxó children from five villages of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Among the under 10 years old, weight and height/length were classified according to the growth references of World Health Organization. Questionnaires evaluating environmental conditions of the households and health conditions of under 5 years old were based in the First National Survey of Indigenous People’s Health and Nutrition. Among the 70 children evaluated (93.3%), 34 were under 5 years old. Nutritional deficits were not observed and overweight was registered for 11.4% of the children. Most of the children (74.3%) lived in households with electric energy, 95% in households with toilets and 52.9% in households that threw waste in septic tanks. Six or more antenatal appointments were reported by 82.4% of the mothers of the under five years old and 91.2% started the antenatal appointments within the first trimester of pregnancy. Among the causes of hospitalizations in the previous 12 months (23.5%), only one was due to diarrhea and none to respiratory infection. Universal coverage was observed for the majority of the vaccines. The absence of nutritional deficits among the Pataxó children may be associated to better housing and sanitation conditions and coverage of basic childhood health actions when compared to the conditions reported by the First National Survey of Indigenous People’s Health and Nutrition and related studies with other specific indigenous peoples. The current study aims to back discussions and measures to improve the nutritional status of indigenous children in Brazil.