Child Malnutrition and Associated Factors among Drought Affected Pastoralists in the Somali Region, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the prevalence of malnutrition and the associated risk factors in children within the age of 6-59 months. Data on dietary diversity and general health condition were gathered using semi-structured questionnaires while weight and height of children were measured using standard anthropometric procedures. Data analysis was done following standard procedures and appropriate software. Associations and correlations of the dependent and outcome variables were computed using Chi-square, OR and 95% CI. P-value less than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. Majority of children (73%) consume a monotonous cereal based meals with 35%, 18.4% and 8.6% of children living on only one, two and three types of foods respectively. Despite the fact that the predominant means of livelihoods is pastoralism, only 3% of children consumed milk or milk products based on a 24-hour recall survey on their mothers. Our assessment indicated that significant proportion of the children were below the global reference population on most of the anthropometrics. Accordingly, we found that over 61.1% (CI=53.4%-68.8%) of them were underweight (WAZ <0.05) with presence of fever, dietary diversity score, breast feeding and age group 6-23 months. Children aged 6-23 months of age were highly (p<0.001) associated with lesser MUAC for age measurements. A decrease in percentage of children with MUAC<11.5cm was highly associated with an increase in the dietary diversity score and the age of the child beyond two years. Our study generally indicated that malnutrition including wasting, underweight and stunting were in high prevalence and in association with a multitude of factors that are complicated by the drought in eastern Ethiopia.