Abstract
BackgroundMalnutrition has long been associated with poverty, poor diet and inadequate access to health care, and it remains a key global health issue that both stems from and contributes to ill-health, with 50 % of childhood deaths due to underlying undernutrition. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among children under-five seen at Bagamoyo District Hospital (BDH) and three rural health facilities ranging between 25 and 55 km from Bagamoyo: Kiwangwa, Fukayosi, and Yombo.MethodsA total of 63,237 children under-five presenting to Bagamoyo District Hospital and the three rural health facilities participated in the study. Anthropometric measures of age, height/length and weight and measurements of mid-upper arm circumference were obtained and compared with reference anthropometric indices to assess nutritional status for patients presenting to the hospital and health facilities.ResultsOverall proportion of stunting, underweight and wasting was 8.37, 5.74 and 1.41 % respectively. Boys were significantly more stunted, under weight and wasted than girls (p-value < 0.05). Children aged 24–59 months were more underweight than 6–23 months (p-value = <0.0001). But, there was no statistical significance difference between the age groups for stunting and wasting. Children from rural areas experienced increased rates of stunting, underweight and wasting than children in urban areas (p-value < 0.05). The results of this study concur with other studies that malnutrition remains a problem within Tanzania; however our data suggests that the population presenting to BDH and rural health facilities presented with decreased rates of malnutrition compared to the general population.ConclusionsHospital and facility attending populations of under-five children in and around Bagamoyo suffer moderately high rates of malnutrition. Current nutrition programs focus on education for at risk children and referral to regional hospitals for malnourished children. Even though the general population has even greater malnutrition than the population presenting at the hospital, in areas of high malnutrition, hospital-based interventions should also be considered as centralized locations for reaching thousands of malnourished children under-five.
Highlights
Malnutrition has long been associated with poverty, poor diet and inadequate access to health care, and it remains a key global health issue that both stems from and contributes to ill-health, with 50 % of childhood deaths due to underlying undernutrition
The objective of this study was to examine the status of malnutrition among male and female children aged 6–59 months in rural and urban areas of Bagamoyo District, Tanzania, that population presenting to the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) clinic at Bagamoyo District Hospital (BDH) and surrounding facilities at Kiwangwa (55 km), Fukayosi (45 km), and Yombo (25 km) from Bagamoyo
The objective of this study was to examine the status of malnutrition among male and female children aged 6–59 months in rural and urban areas of Bagamoyo District, Tanzania, that population presenting to the RCH clinic at BDH and selected surrounding rural facilities
Summary
Malnutrition has long been associated with poverty, poor diet and inadequate access to health care, and it remains a key global health issue that both stems from and contributes to ill-health, with 50 % of childhood deaths due to underlying undernutrition. Malnutrition remains a key global health issue and a nutritional related condition in Tanzania. It is often assessed through anthropometric analyses that examine weight, stunting and wasting. ‘Wasting’ can be either moderate or severe and is defined as being below two standard deviations from median weight for height of reference population. ‘stunting’ can be either moderate or severe and is defined as being two standards deviations from median height for age of the reference population
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