Stunting and its determinant factors among children aged 6–59 months in Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Though Ethiopia has implemented different nutritional interventions, childhood stunting on which literature is limited continues as a severe public health problem. Thus, this study aimed to investigate stunting and its determinants among children aged 6–59 months in the predominantly rural northwest Ethiopia. METHODS: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted from May to June 2015 at Dabat Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) site. A total of 1295 mother-child pairs were included for analysis. An ordinal multivariable logistic regression analysis was carried out to identify the determinants of severe stunting. To show the strength of associations, both Crude Odds Ratio (COR) and Adjusted Odds Ratios (AOR) with a 95% Confidence Interval (CI) were estimated. Also, a P-value of <0.05 was used to declare statistical significance in the final model. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of stunting among children aged 6–59 months was 64.5%, of which about 37.7% and 26.8% were moderately and severely stunted, respectively. Farming occupation of mother [AOR = 1.45; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.93], lack of postnatal vitamin-A supplementation [AOR = 1.54; 95%: 1.19, 2.00], poorer household wealth status [AOR = 2.07; CI: 1.56, 2.75] and accessing family food from farms [AOR = 1.44; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.89] were identified as the key determinants of severe stunting. CONCLUSION: In the district, the magnitude of stunting was a critical public health concern. Therefore, emphasis should be given to improving mothers’ postnatal vitamin A supplementation coverage and building knowledge about appropriate child feeding practices among farmer mothers and poorer households.