An epidemiological study of health and nutritional status of under five children in semi-urban community of Gujarat.

ABSTRACT

In developing countries, children of 0-5 years of age form a large as well as "high risk" group. Malnutrition poses a grave risk to the health of these children. The main objectives of this study were to assess the health & nutritional status of children of 0-5 years of age group & to study the influence of various epidemiological factors on health & nutritional status of children on 0-5 years of age group. It is a community based cross sectional study done in randomly selected three wards of Petlad town, district Anand in Gujarat state. 300 children of age group 0-5 years selected by systematic sampling method. Mother of each child included in the study was subjected to personal interview in her own house followed by clinical examination & anthropometric measurements of the child. The three indices of nutritional status namely, weight for age, height for age, & weight for height were expressed in standard deviation units from the median for the international reference populations as per WHONCHS standards & were compared with WHONCHS growth reference data. The prevalence of under weight (wt. for age below 2SD) was 43.67%. 50.3% children were found stunted (ht. 1br age below -2 SID) with higher prevalence in 2nd and 5th year of life. Prevalence of wasting (wt. for ht. below 2SD) was comparatively low (23.2% with a peak in 3rd year of life). These nutritional parameters showed a significant association with parental education, socio-economic status, family size, environmental conditions (safe drink water, sanitary waste disposal & overcrowding), & episodes of common diseases.