Abstract:
Anemia remains a major public health problem for children in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Iron-rich foods consumption has a determinant role on the anemia status. Hence, this study
aimed to determine the prevalence of good consumption of iron-rich foods and its associated factors among children aged 6–23 months in SSA.
Materials and methods
The recent Demographic and Health Survey data sets of thirty-five SSA countries were
used. Data were analyzed using STATA/MP version 16.0 and all statistical analyses were
done after weighting the data. A generalized linear mixed model using Poisson regression
with robust error variance was used to determine factors associated with good consumption
of iron-rich food. Association of variables was declared at a p-value of �0.05 and adjusted
prevalence ratio (aPR) ratio with its 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated for each
variable.
Results
The total weighted samples of 77,001 children aged 6–23 months were included. The prevalence of consumption of iron rich foods was 42.1% (95% CI: 41.78–42.48). Children with
age of 12–17 (adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR) = 1.96, 95% CI: 1.89–2.04) and 18–23
months (aPR = 2.05, 95% CI: 1.97–2.14), who took drugs for intestinal parasites (aPR =
1.30, 95% CI: 1.26–1.34), with postnatal check within 2 months (aPR = 1.09, 95% CI:
PLOS ONE
PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253221 June 17, 2021 1 / 16
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OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Akalu Y, Yeshaw Y, Tesema GA, Demissie
GD, Molla MD, Muche A, et al. (2021) Iron-rich
food consumption and associated factors among
children aged 6–23 months in sub-Saharan Africa:
A multilevel analysis of Demographic and Health
Surveys. PLoS ONE 16(6): e0253221. https://doi.
org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253221
Editor: Marly A. Cardoso, Universidade de Sao
Paulo Faculdade de Saude Publica, BRAZIL
Received: December 28, 2020
Accepted: May 31, 2021
Published: June 17, 2021
Copyright: © 2021 Akalu et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Data Availability S
