Prevalence of anemia amongst adolescents in Nepal: a community based study in rural and urban areas of Morang District.

Adolescence covers 10-19 years of human age and is the transition period of life. In Nepal around 23 percent population are in this age group. A cross sectional community based study was carried out in Morang district to determine prevalence and distribution of anemia in terms of age, sex and locations (urban and rural) among adolescent population. Sahli method was used to determine the hemoglobin level. Three hundred and eight adolescents (127 urban, 181 rural in terms of location and 151 male, 157 female in terms of sex) participated in the study. The overall prevalence of iron deficiency anemia among adolescent population was 65.6% with the distribution of rural 62.4%, urban 70.0%, male 52.3% and female 78.3%. Sufficiency or deficiency of iron makes the living of adolescents different as it affects their growth requirement and cognitive performance. Iron reserve in female result better reproductive outcome. In Nepal, iron deficiency anemia among male adolescent has not been documented yet and this study reports more than half of them are found anemic which warrant further study.