Stunting and Family Socio-Cultural Determinant Factors: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Stunting is a major public health problem in many developing countries including Indonesia and several ethnic groups have a very high prevalence of stunting which is caused by socio-cultural factors in the family. Objective: This study aims to review family social and cultural factors in relation to stunting. Method: This research uses a systematic review using the PRISMA method. There are 5 steps in this method namely determining the literature topic, searching for sources, selecting relevant sources, grouping and analyzing, and summarizing published research articles on family social culture on stunting published between 2018-2022 in the online article databases PubMed, Proquest, Scopus, Google Scholar and Sciencedirect. Data collection techniques by entering keywords in the database, keywords used: family social culture, intervention AND family environment risk of stunting*social demographics OR health education OR family empowerment OR maternal nutritional behavior OR family empowerment AND stunting. Screening consists of title, abstract, year of research, and methods used. Next, sorting the articles according to the predetermined inclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria in this study are: (1) Quantitative type of research with primary data; (2) Contains research results on socio-cultural factors that influence stunting in children; (3) the year the research was published in the last five years (2018-2022), (4) the sample used was families (children), (5) the text of the article was in English. A total of 18 of 1,544 articles met the inclusion criteria for this review material. Results: This study shows that from the 18 selected articles it was found that stunting is caused by socio-cultural and family demographics, family nutritional behavior, and the family environment at risk of stunting. In addition, a model of health education and family empowerment based on family socio-culture was obtained. Conclusion: This study found that family social culture is a significant determinant of stunting. Therefore, further research needs to be carried out to complete our understanding of the complexity of the stunting problem.