Abstract:
Background:Childhood anemia is the major public health problem in Ethiopia. It has been implicated with growth
retardation, impaired motor and cognitive development, and childhood morbidity and mortality. Thus this study
aimed to identify determinants of severity levels of anemia in children aged 6 to 59 months in Ethiopia.
Method:The study was further analysis of the 2011 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey. A total of 7636
children aged 6 to 59 months with complete information on the selected predictors were included in the analysis.
Proportional odds model of ordinal logistic regression was used to identify determinant factors. Chi-square test of
parallelism was used to evaluate the appropriateness of proportional odds assumption. Ap-value less than 0.05 was
considered as statistically significant.
Results:The Chi-square test of parallelism showed that the odds ratios were constant across all cut-off points of
childhood anemia status at 5 % level (p-value = 0.071). Of the total children sampled, 28.6 and 21.7 % of them were
severely/moderately and mildly anemic, respectively. Wasting, Stunting, religion, and age of the child, current
employment status of the mother, educational status of the partner, number of under-5 children in the household,
source of drinking water and mother’s anemia status were found to be statistically significant determinants of
severity levels of childhood anemia.
Conclusions:The likelihoods of being severely/moderately anemic as compared to being mildly/non-anemic, and
being severely/moderately/mildly anemic as compared to being non-anemic were similar for a given variable
keeping all others. Long term and short term nutritional status of young aged children, access to health and
nutritional education, and access to safe drinking water should be improved by the concerned body.
Keywords:Anemia, Children aged 6–59 months, Determinants, Ordinal logistic regression, Severity levels
Abbreviations:AIDS, Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; CSA, Central statistical agency; D, Deviance test
statistic; EDHS, Ethiopian demographic and health survey; HIV, Human immunodeficiency virus; OR, Odds ratio;
POM, Proportional odds model; WHO, World Health Organization
