Trends of Stunting Prevalence and Its Associated Factors among Nigerian Children Aged 0-59 Months Residing in the Northern Nigeria, 2008-2018.

Osita K Ezeh,Kingsley E Agho,Abdullah Al Mamun,Noor Raihani Zainol,Tanvir Abir,Abul H Milton,Md Rashidul Haque

doi:10.3390/nu13124312

Abstract

Every year in Nigeria, malnutrition contributes to more than 33% of the deaths of children below 5 years, and these deaths mostly occur in the northern geopolitical zones (NGZs), where nearly 50% of all children below 5 years are stunted. This study examined the trends in the prevalence of stunting and its associated factors among children aged 0–23 months, 24–59 months and 0–59 months in the NGZs. The data of 33,682 recent live births in the NGZs, extracted from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys from 2008 to 2018, were used to investigate the factors associated with stunting using multilevel logistic regression. Children aged 24–59 months reported the highest prevalence of stunting, with 53.3% (95% confidence interval: 52.0–54.6%). Multivariable analyses revealed four common factors that increased the odds of a child’s stunting across all age subgroups: poor households, geopolitical zone (northwest or northeast), being a male and maternal height (<145 cm). Interventional strategies focused on poverty mitigation through cash transfer and educating low socioeconomic mothers on the benefits of gender-neutral supplementary feeding and the timely monitoring of the offspring of short mothers would substantially reduce stunting across all age subgroups in the NGZs.

Highlights

Stunting is an indicator of chronic undernutrition in children below 5 years of age, and it remains a daunting public health and development challenges in Africa, includingNigeria
The findings showed that four common factors, including children residing in the NE or the NW, residing in a poor or average-income household, being a male child and children of short mothers, were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of stunting in children across each of the three age categories (0–23 months, 24–59 months and 0–59 months) in the northern geopolitical zones (NGZs), Nigeria
Other significant factors that increased the odds of stunting in children, those aged 24–59 months and 0–59 months, were low maternal education or no schooling, diarrhoea and fourth or higher birth order with a short birth interval of ≤2 years, while children perceived to be small or smaller by their mothers at birth had higher odds of stunting among children aged 0–23 months

Summary

Introduction

Stunting is an indicator of chronic undernutrition in children below 5 years of age, and it remains a daunting public health and development challenges in Africa, includingNigeria. Stunting is an indicator of chronic undernutrition in children below 5 years of age, and it remains a daunting public health and development challenges in Africa, including. Over the last two decades, the number of stunted children below 5 years of age has decreased globally in all regions except Africa, where it increased by 12.9%, from 54.4 million in 2000 to 61.4 million in 2020 [1]. A stunted child is defined as one whose height is approximately the height-for-age below minus two standard deviations (−2 SD) from the median reference of the standard curve, as described by the World Health. The prevalence of stunted children below 5 years of age in Nigerian remains very high, and it has hardly changed The burden of childhood undernutrition in Nigeria is very concerning, in the northern geopolitical zones (NGZs), consisting of the north-central (NC), northeast (NE)

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