Nutritional status in children under 18 months and associations with community's characteristics in 5 provinces in Vietnam

Abstract

This research was to identify the prevalence of malnourished children and the association between community's characteristics and children's nutritional status among the children aged 6 to 17 months in Lao Cai, Hung Yen, Phu Yen, Ben Tre and DaNang provinces in Vietnam. This was a cross-sectional study of 2000 children and their caregivers; a care giver questionnaire survey survey was performed along with child anthropometric measurements. Child nutritional status was assessed by 3 indices: height-for-age, weight-for-age, and weight-for-height. To control the problem of hierarchical data, the multilevel regression modeling for child nutritional status was performed to clarify the association with its potential factors. The results show that the prevalence of stunting of children aged 6 to 17 months in DaNang, BenTre, HungYen, PhuYen and LaoCai was 9.1 per cent (95%CI[8.3-9.9]), 10.9 per cent (95%CI[10.4-11.3]), 14.3 per cent (95%CI[13.9-14.8]), 18.7 per cent (95%CI[17.6-19.8]) and 32.2 per cent (95%CI[31.2-33.1]) respectively. The prevalence of underweight in DaNang, BenTre, HungYen, PhuYen and LaoCau was 15.4 per cent (95%CI[14.7-16.1]), 24.8 percent (95%CI[24.1-25.5]), 20.6 per cent (95%CI[19.9-21.4]), 31.7 per cent (95%CI[30.5-33.0]) and 30.6 per cent (95%CI[30.0-31]) respectively. The prevalence of washing in DaNang, BenTre, HungYen, PhuYen and LaoCai was 4.6 per cent (95%CI[4.4-4.8]), 13.7 per cent (95%CI[13.0-14.3]), 3.3 per cent (95%CI[3.3-3.6]), 9.4 per cent (95%CI[8.6-10.2]) and 2.2 per cent (95%CI[2.1-2.3]) respectively. The analysis of association reveals the basic services available in commune had a positive association with child nutritution status. Similar associations were also reported between commune health care index variable and height-for-age of the children. Children living in communes easily accessing health care services had higher HAZ. Based on the findings, this research concluded that child malnutritution in the provinces still was public health problem especially in mountainous areas (PhuYen and LaoCai). Community characteristics were significantly associated with child nutritional status in the provinces.