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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2016

Open Access 01-12-2016 | Research article

Environmental predictors of stunting among children under-five in Somalia: cross-sectional studies from 2007 to 2010

Authors: Damaris K. Kinyoki, James A. Berkley, Grainne M. Moloney, Elijah O. Odundo, Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala, Abdisalan M. Noor

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2016

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Abstract

Background

Stunting among children under five years old is associated with long-term effects on cognitive development, school achievement, economic productivity in adulthood and maternal reproductive outcomes. Accurate estimation of stunting and tools to forecast risk are key to planning interventions. We estimated the prevalence and distribution of stunting among children under five years in Somalia from 2007 to 2010 and explored the role of environmental covariates in its forecasting.

Methods

Data from household nutritional surveys in Somalia from 2007 to 2010 with a total of 1,066 clusters covering 73,778 children were included. We developed a Bayesian hierarchical space-time model to forecast stunting by using the relationship between observed stunting and environmental covariates in the preceding years. We then applied the model coefficients to environmental covariates in subsequent years. To determine the accuracy of the forecasting, we compared this model with a model that used data from all the years with the corresponding environmental covariates.

Results

Rainfall (OR = 0.994, 95 % Credible interval (CrI): 0.993, 0.995) and vegetation cover (OR = 0.719, 95 % CrI: 0.603, 0.858) were significant in forecasting stunting. The difference in estimates of stunting using the two approaches was less than 3 % in all the regions for all forecast years.

Conclusion

Stunting in Somalia is spatially and temporally heterogeneous. Rainfall and vegetation are major drivers of these variations. The use of environmental covariates for forecasting of stunting is a potentially useful and affordable tool for planning interventions to reduce the high burden of malnutrition in Somalia.
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Metadata
Title
Environmental predictors of stunting among children under-five in Somalia: cross-sectional studies from 2007 to 2010
Authors
Damaris K. Kinyoki
James A. Berkley
Grainne M. Moloney
Elijah O. Odundo
Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala
Abdisalan M. Noor
Publication date
01-12-2016
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2016
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3320-6

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