Stunting, Micronutrient Deficiencies, and Worm Infections Among Primary School Children at Low and Lower-Middle Income Countries in Asia and Africa: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Most of stunting and children with micronutrient deficiencies lived in Asia and in Africa region. In many developing countries, any nutritional disorders are aggravated by some infectious diseases such as worm infections especially among children aged 5 to 15 years. The aim of this review study was to describe and compare the prevalence of stunting, micronutrient deficiencies, and worm infections prevalence among primary school children at low and lower-middle income countries in Asia and Africa from 2007 to 2017. The methodology of this research was systematic review, with target population is primary school children aged 6-15 years. The resources of this review study came from online and offline databases; included PubMed, Cochrane Library, Google and Google Scholars. Selected studies should be published journals from low and low-middle income countries in Asia and Africa in last 10 years. A total of 450 selected articles from the various resources were exported to Endnote. Then all the references were filtered by reading the tittles to exclude duplicate resources and the abstracts to exclude resources with unmatched criteria such as children’s age range. Remaining references then were appraised by using appraisal tool and extraction tools from JBI. All these steps were recorded in PRISMA flow diagram (figure 1). Finally, there were 57 of 450 references were selected in this review study. The result of this research showed the prevalence of stunting and micronutrient deficiencies among primary school children in low income countries was higher from Asia. Meanwhile, in lower-middle income countries stunting and micronutrient deficiencies prevalence among primary school children were higher in Africa. Different to stunting and micronutrient deficiencies, prevalence of worm infections in both income country groups was higher in Africa than in Asia. Based on the region, more stunting primary school children were found in Asia than Africa. In contrast, prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies and worm infections were higher among primary school children from Africa. Based on income country group, prevalence of stunting was slightly similar in low and lower-middle income countries. On the other hand, prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies and worm infections were much higher in primary school children from low income countries. In conclusion, this researched stated that primary school children in Asia and Africa have the same nutritional problems and economic level of a country can’t be a single variable to describe the burden of stunting, micronutrient deficiencies, and worm infections among primary school children.