Stunting and Its Determinants among Adolescent Girls: Findings from the Nutrition Surveillance Project, Northwest Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Under nutrition among adolescents is a major public health problem in Ethiopia and its causes are under investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the prevalence of stunting and its determinants among adolescent girls in Dabat district. A total of 1556 adolescent girls were included in the study. The WHO’s Anthro-plus software was used to generate the height for age z-scores. Variables having a p-value<0.2 in the simple logistic regression were entered into multiple logistic regression and a p-value < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. About 47.4%(95%CI; 45.0, 49.6%) of adolescent girls were stunted. Being in the early (AOR = 0.027, 95%CI: 0.08, 0.09) and middle age (AOR = 0.21, 95%CI: 0.06, 0.71) were less likely to be stunted compared with the late adolescent. The odds of stunting were found to be higher among adolescent of rural area (AOR = 1.45; 95%CI: 1.01, 2.10) and from household food in-secured (AOR = 1.33; 95%CI: 1.02, 1.73)families. Higher numbers of adolescent girls are stunted in Dabat district, suggesting severe public health importance of the problem. Age, residence and food security were associated with adolescent stunting. Thus, improving food security strategies targeting rural and food insecure households is recommended.

Abbreviations: AOR= Adjusted Odd Ratio,CI= Confidence Interval, COR= Crude Odd Ratio, ENSSPI=Establishing Nutrition Surveillance System and Piloting Interventions HAZ=Height for Age, HDSS=Health and Demographic Surveillance System, HFSS=Household Food Security Status, INDEPTH=International Network of Demographic Evaluation of Population and Their Health, IQR=Inter Quartile Range, NNP=National Nutrition Program, NSHFP=National School Health and Feeding Program, SPSS=Statically Package for Social Science, WHO= World Health Organization.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent girls
• stunting
• Dabat
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all respondents for their willingness to participate in the study. They are also grateful to the University of Gondar and Dabat ENSSPI site for financial and material support, correspondingly.

Authors’ contribution

The authors’ contributions were as follows- Conceptualization: AK, KA, AT, GA, ZA, SD, MT, EA, AA,ME,KF, YK,AD,KA, GD, MM, BF, TA, and EG: designed and supervised: AT, GA, ZA, AA, YK, TA, ME, EG, and MM.AK and AT did the analysis and interpretation of the data. AK wrote the manuscript and had the final responsibility to submit it for publication. AT, MM and AF critical revised manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The Authors affirm that they have no conflict of interest.

Declarations

Ethical consideration

The ethical consideration was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Gondar. An official permission letter was secured from the Dabat ENSSPI site. Informed consent was obtained from each study subject after an explanation of why they take part in the research. They were also informed participation is volunteer based. Participant’s involvement in the study was on a voluntary basis; participants who were not volunteer to participate in the study and thosewho wish to quit their participation at any stage was informed to do so without any restriction. The respondents’ confidentiality of information was assured by excluding names and identifiers from in the questionnaire

Additional information

Funding

The study fund was obtained from the University of Gondar. The views presented in the article are of the author and not necessarily express the views of the funding organization. The University of Gondar was not involved in the design of the study, data collection, analysis, and interpretation