DETERMINANTS OF ACUTE UNDERNUTRITION AMONG CHILDREN AGED 6-59 MONTHS IN META DISTRICT, EASTERN HARARGE, ETHIOPIA.

Abstract

Despitegovernmental and non-government organization effort to reduce the problem, acute undernutrition continues to be among the leading cause of morbidity and mortalityin under five children in developing country including Ethiopia. Understanding the determinant of acute undernutrition in the given society helps to identify the area of priority for intervention. However, there is limited study conducted on the determinants of acute undernutrition among under-five children using case-control study design in Ethiopia including the current study area. Objective: Th is study aimed to assess the determinants of acute undernutrition among children aged 6-59 months inMeta district, Oromiya, eastern Ethiopia. Methods:A community-based case-control study was conducted among406(203 cases and 203 controls) children aged 6-59 months included in the survey,of which 390(195 cases and 195 controls) included in the analysis with overall reponse rate 96 %,from March 01to March 30, 2020. Six Kebeles were selected by simple random sampling and 4320 target population founded .The cases were 203 children with acute undernutrition selected by simple random sampling from total 472 cases andcontrols were 203 children without acute undernutrition selected from total 3848 controls in the same Kebele.Data were double entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and export to SPSS version 23for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression analyses were used to identify determinants of acute undernutrition. Adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to declear stastistical significance at P-value <0.05. Results:-The current study revealed, acute undernutrition was significantly associated with Age 12-23 months[AOR=3.32,95%CI: 1.49,7.37],household food insecurity [AOR=2.64,95%CI: 1.24,5.61], service inaccessibility [AOR=10.70,95%CI: 5.25,21.84],lack of maternal counseling about child feeding during postnatal follow up[AOR=2.39,95%CI: 1.22,4.65],None exclusive breastfeeding[AOR=2.16,95%CI:1.02,4.55], and fever in the last two weeks [AOR=6.44,95%CI(2.75,15.09)]and diarrhea in last two weeks[AOR=2.68,95%CI(1.15,6.21)]. Conclusion:-Child age 12-23 months, HH food insecure, lack of exclusive breastfeeding, infection, service inaccessibility, and lack of maternal counseling on child feedingwas significant determinants of acute malnutrition in this study.Multi-sector approach is crucial to address child acute undernutrition. There is need intervention on identified predictor in the study area.