Nutrition status and socio-economic inequality among children (0-59 months) across different regions of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Background: The paper aims to explore the magnitude of the nutritional status and socio-economic inequality among children in various regions of Uttar Pradesh in rural-urban areas. Methods: Fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (2015-16) data was used. Multivariate logistic regression and decomposition analysis were employed to understand the socio-economic inequality. Results: Finding shows that the Bundelkhand region has the highest prevalence of underweight (45.4 per 100) and wasted (29.5 per 100) children while Purvanchal region has the majority of stunted (48.3 per 100) children. The rural area has the highest percentage of underweight (40.9 percent) children followed by stunted (48.4 percent) and wasted (17.9 percent) respectively. About half of the children are underweight (46.3 percent) whose mother has no schooling, with more than 55 percent of the stunted children, and approximately 18 percent of children are wasted. Other findings of the study are: wasted children have shown a very different trend compared to stunted and underweight, which has gone up between NFHS-3 and NFHS-4 rounds, in both rural-urban areas of Bundelkhand region, wasted children remain within a very narrow range, an unexplained trend was observed among wasted children where mothers from poorest quintile are with high BMI as compared to richest quintile, d) mother education appears to have little effect on the wasting levels. Conclusions: Adequate regional health planning in child health and nutritional development could be a proper approach that reduces geographical differences as well as the socio-economic disparity in child health and malnutrition.