Childhood stunting, a phenomenon caused by extreme poverty and malnutrition that hinders basic development in children, is becoming a huge issue in Africa.
A report released by ReliefWeb International – a humanitarian information portal founded in 1996 – dives deep into this problem with the help of geospatial data gathered over 2 decades.
The report highlights some of the key issues and trends that have been observed since the start of the 21st century and majorly focuses on the third largest country by population in Africa – Ethiopia. ReliefWeb used the Bayesian approach to visualize the data and generate a spatially continuous estimate of the national proportion of stunting mapped in 2000, 2005, 2011, 2016, and 2019.
The data was provided by the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) wherein, descriptive statistics such as the proportion of stunting in 11 administrative regions of the country were calculated and presented.
“Under-five children included in the five EDHSs in Ethiopia were included in this analysis. All the five EDHS enumeration areas were stratified into urban and rural following the nearby population and housing censuses,” the report stated.
The parameter was set by considering the height for the age of the child. If it comes below -2 standard deviations (SD), the child is reflected as stunted. The result of geographical and temporal variations was “36,013 under-five children were included in the analysis. The overall prevalence of stunting in Ethiopia was 47.9%, 43.3%, 37.3%, 36.6% and 35.9% in 2000, 2005, 2011, 2016 and 2019, respectively,” as founded by the report.
The prevalence of stunting was reduced by 25% in the last two decades from 47.9% in 2000 to 35.9% in 2019. Region-wise, the highest predicted prevalence of stunting was observed in the Northern, Northcentral, Northwestern, and Southern parts of the country.
However, the overall prevalence of stunting among under-five children in Ethiopia is far below the 2025 global target, which states a 40% reduction of stunting in under-five children through a comprehensive implementation of maternal, infant, and young children, the report emphasized.
While concluding the report, ReliefWeb stated “Temperature, population density and travel time to the nearest cities were identified as the drivers of stunting among under-five children in Ethiopia. Thus, community health extension programs should be strengthened through community awareness creation towards child nutrition, particularly in areas far from the cities.”
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Source link : https://www.geospatialworld.net/prime/childhood-stunting-control-in-ethiopia-way-below-2025-target-report/
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Publish date : 2023-11-06 08:00:00
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