Risk factors and socioeconomic inequalities in undernutrition among children 0-59 months of age in India

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Abstract

In the majority of low- and middle-income counties, child health-care dissimilarities are further aggravated by nutritional status (i.e., stunting, underweight, and wasting). In India, child malnutrition is the most important contributor to disease burden. The present study uses data from the 4^thround of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), conducted in 2015-2016. We considered anthropometric indicators of unit-level data of 2, 48, and 174 children aged 0-59 months. This study examines the socio-economic inequality in nutritional status and their determinants among under-5 year children. The factors considered in the analysis were categorized as child age in months, mother’s educational status, mother’s nutritional-status, type of caste, wealth index, birth order, and size of a child at birth. In this study, multivariate logistic regression and concentration index (CI) have been employed to explore the effect of various factors on the child’s nutritional status. The binary logistic analysis has demonstrated a significant association between child nutritional status and mother’s education, mother’s nutritional status, type of caste, wealth index, birth order, and size of a child at birth. The results show that the CI for stunting, underweight, and wasting were −0.14, −0.16, and −0.08. Therefore, these factors were significantly high in poorer households. Our study suggests that the nutrition-specific programs to encourage nutritional adequacy, diversity, reduces the nutritional burden, and growth of child’s in India.

Keywords

India

Stunting

Wasting

Underweight

Logistic regression

Concentration index

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