Socio-Cultural Risk Factors of Anemia among Children under Five Years of Age in District Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Pakistan

Aims: This study is aimed to determine the prevalence of anemia and to analyze its socio-cultural determinants among under five children to devise targeted delivery plan for pharmaceutical interventions to combat anemia.

Study Design: To investigate the socio-cultural risk factors, a cross-sectional field survey was conducted to gather data from 384 women and their last child up to five years of age in Muzaffarabad district of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan.

Methodology: A pretested interview schedule was constructed to collect socio-cultural characteristics of the women and their children. We use convenience sampling which is a non-probability sampling technique for data collection. Two government hospitals were selected for data and blood samples collection from respondents. We use univariate analysis for descriptive statistics and perform bivariate analysis to find the association of anemia with the socio-cultural risk factors. Binary logistic regression is used to calculate odd ratios and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals. The results were considered statistically significant for p-value <0.05.

Results: The overall prevalence of anemia is 47.7%, which is a severe health problem from public health perspective. Among anemic children 74(40.4%) are mildly anemic, 79(43.2%) are suffering from moderate and 30(16.4%) from severe anemia. Major risk factors of anemia include residential area, parental education, father’s profession, lower family income, maternal knowledge about balanced diet and anemia.

Conclusion: It is concluded that anemia among under five children is a multifactorial problem and policymakers should devise targeted pharmaceutical interventions (iron and folic acid supplementation) to combat anemia.