Abstract
BackgroundAnemia continued to become a major public health problem in developing nations including Ethiopia. Especially, school children are more vulnerable for anemia and consequences of anemia. Generating accurate epidemiological data on anemia in school children is an important step for health policy maker. There are limited evidences on anemia prevalence in school-age children in Ethiopia. This study aimed to synthesize the pooled prevalence of anemia in school-age children in Ethiopia.MethodsThis systematic review and meta-analysis was followed the PRISMA guidelines. Comprehensive searched was conducted in PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, HINARI, and Ethiopian Journal of Health Development for studies published before 2016, supplemented by manual searches to identify relevant studies. Two review authors independently selected studies, extracted data, and assessed quality of studies. The Cochrane Q test and I2 test statistic were used to test heterogeneity through studies. The overall prevalence was calculated using random-effects model of DerSimonian–Laird method.ResultsFrom 831 obtained studies, 13 articles included in the meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of anemia among school children in Ethiopia was 23% (95% CI 18–28%). The prevalence of anemia in male and female school-age children was 27% (95% CI 20 and 34%) and 24% (95% CI 18 and 30%), respectively.ConclusionsThis study found that prevalence of anemia was a moderate public health problem in school children. Due to the complications of anemia for school children, preventative planning and control of anemia among school children in Ethiopia is necessary.
Highlights
Anemia continued to become a major public health problem in developing nations including Ethiopia
Iron deficiency is the primary cause of anemia which results iron-deficiency anemia (IDA)
Selection criteria All population-based studies which reported the prevalence of anemia among school children in Ethiopia using English language were included
Summary
Anemia continued to become a major public health problem in developing nations including Ethiopia. There are limited evidences on anemia prevalence in school-age children in Ethiopia. This study aimed to synthesize the pooled prevalence of anemia in school-age children in Ethiopia. Anemia is a public health problem both in developed and developing countries, including Ethiopia [1]. Iron deficiency is the primary cause of anemia which results iron-deficiency anemia (IDA). It coexists with malaria and parasitic infection [1, 2]. Iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) resulted 273,000 deaths in the world, and 97% of deaths were occurred in developing countries [5]
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