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Updated: Sep 28, 2025
Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Multilevel multivariate analysis on the anthropometric indicators of under-five children in Ethiopia: EMDHS 2019
Lijalem Melie Tesfaw1, Zelalem G Dessie2
1Department of Statistics, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. lijalemmelie@gmail.com.
Insights
Undernutrition affects 42.9% of Ethiopian children under five. Factors like household education and wealth significantly impact child stunting, underweight, and wasting, highlighting regional disparities.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Public Health
- Global Health
Background:
- Undernutrition is a primary cause of under-five child mortality and morbidity globally.
- It serves as a critical indicator of a nation's economic and health standing.
- Ethiopian research on under-five anthropometric indicators, considering associations and clustering, requires further attention.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify and estimate key determinants of under-five anthropometric indicators in Ethiopia.
- To account for the association and clustering effects among these determinants.
- To provide evidence for targeted interventions to combat child undernutrition.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional study design utilizing data from the 2019 Ethiopia Mini Demographic and Health Survey (EMDHS).
- Analysis included 5027 children under five years of age.
- A multilevel multivariate logistic regression model was employed to assess determinant effects, considering associations and clustering.
Main Results:
- Prevalence of stunting, underweight, and wasting was 36.0%, 23.3%, and 9.1% respectively; overall undernutrition was 42.9%.
- Higher household education levels and richer wealth status were associated with reduced stunting.
- Urban children had lower odds of being underweight and wasted compared to rural children.
Conclusions:
- Child undernutrition, including stunting, underweight, and wasting, remains a significant concern in Ethiopia.
- Household education, wealth index, and child's sex are critical determinants of anthropometric indicators.
- Undernutrition status exhibits regional clustering, suggesting localized intervention strategies may be effective.
Background:
Undernutrition is the main cause of morbidity and mortality of children aged under five and it is an important indicator of countries' economic and health status. Limited attention is given to research papers conducted in Ethiopia that identified and estimates the determinants of under-five anthropometric indicators by considering their association and clustering effect. Therefore, this study aimed to identify and estimate the effects of important determinants of anthropometric indicators by taking into account their association and cluster effects.
Methods:
In this study, a cross-sectional study design was implemented based on the data obtained from the 2019 Ethiopia Mini Demographic and Health Survey (EMDHS) consists a total of 5027 under-five children. A multilevel multivariate logistic regression model was employed to estimate the effect of the determinants given their association of anthropometric indicators and clustering effect.
Results:
Among 5027 children considered in the study 36.0, 23.3, and 9.1% of them were stunted, underweight, and wasted, respectively. Whereas the total number of undernourished (stunting, underweight and/or wasting) children was 42.9%. More than half of the children (51.2%) were males and 77.0% lived in rural area. The estimated odds of children from households with secondary and above education levels being stunted was 0.496 (OR = 0.496) times the estimated odds of children from households with no education. Whereas children from the richest households were less likely to be stunted as compared to children from the poorest households (OR = 0.485). The estimated odds of children from urban areas being underweight and wasting were lower by 24.9 and 33.7% of estimated odds of children from rural areas respectively.
Conclusion:
The prevalence of anthropometric indicators of stunting, underweight, and wasting in Ethiopia was increased. The children underweight has significant dependency with both stunting and wasting. The sex of the child, wealth index, and education level of a household are the common important determinants of stunting, underweight and wasting. The undernourished status of children was more alike within the region and differences between regions.
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