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

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 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 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