Determinants Of Malnutrition In Cmldren Under Five At Effutu Municipality

ABSTRACT

Background-Malnutrition is an underlying factor in many diseases for both children and

adults and is particularly prevalent in developing countries, where it affects one out of

every three preschool-age children. Under nutrition (malnourished) a form of malnutrition

has been a worldwide problem which is being tackled in various ways and is usually

prevalent among children in developing economies. One of the appropriate measures

to support the fight against malnutrition in general and undernutrition specifically is to

know the nutritional status and conditions of the population so that appropriate measures

can be taken to address them.

Objective- The study sought to find out the proportion of children under five years who

were malnourished and examined what socio-economic, household practices, child health

care seeking practices and cultural beliefs and practices are associated with the most

prevalent form of undernutrition

Metbodology-A community based researcb was conducted to assess the nutritional status

of children under five years in Effutu municipality for a total of 350 children. With the use

of a structured questionnaire, data on children and care givers was collected. Data was

entered into Microsoft Excel 2010. WHO Anthro software version 3.2.2.1 was used in

determining the z-scores and SPSS software version 20 was used to perform univariate,

bivariate and logistic regression analysis. A P