Department of Public Health and Occupational Medicine, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu-shi, Mie, Japan.
Foreign Relation Division, Cabinet of the Ministry of Health, Sisattanack District, Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR.
PLoS One. 2021 Mar 25;16(3):e0248969. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248969. eCollection 2021.
Anemia is a major public health concern among children aged <5 years in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Thus far, no study has determined the factors associated with anemia among children aged <5 years in the Lao People's Democratic Republic using a nationwide representative sample. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of anemia and its associated factors with multilevel variations among children aged 6-59 months. This quantitative, cross-sectional study used a nationally representative sample from the Lao Social Indicator Survey II, 2017. Children aged 6-59 months tested for anemia were included in this study through multistage sampling approaches. Anemia was defined as a hemoglobin level of <11.0 g/dL. Multilevel binary logistic regression analyses were used to determine the adjusted effect of the factors associated with anemia. Among the 5,087 children included, the overall prevalence of anemia was 43.0%. Three factors were associated with higher odds of developing anemia-male sex (adjusted odds ratio, 1.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.34), underweight (adjusted odds ratio, 1.30; 95% confidence interval, 1.09-1.55), and residence in central provinces (adjusted odds ratio, 1.59; 95% confidence interval, 1.30-1.95) and southern provinces (adjusted odds ratio, 1.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.11-1.81). However, the other three factors-age, educational level of the household head, and Hmong-Mien ethnicity-were inversely associated with anemia. To resolve the problem regarding the severity of the anemia among children aged <5 years in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Our findings highlight the need for designing an effective approach to address each factor associated with childhood anemia. Interventions should focus on the prevention of childhood anemia, which is considered a major priority of public health intervention in the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
贫血是老挝人民民主共和国 5 岁以下儿童的一个主要公共卫生问题。迄今为止，尚无研究使用全国代表性样本确定老挝人民民主共和国 5 岁以下儿童贫血的相关因素。因此，本研究旨在评估 6-59 月龄儿童贫血的流行情况及其与多层次差异相关的因素。这项定量、横断面研究使用了 2017 年老挝社会指标调查 II 的全国代表性样本。通过多阶段抽样方法，对接受贫血检测的 6-59 月龄儿童进行了本研究。贫血定义为血红蛋白水平<11.0 g/dL。使用多水平二项逻辑回归分析来确定与贫血相关的因素的调整影响。在纳入的 5087 名儿童中，贫血的总患病率为 43.0%。有三个因素与更高的贫血发病风险相关——男性（调整后的优势比，1.16；95%置信区间，1.01-1.34）、体重不足（调整后的优势比，1.30；95%置信区间，1.09-1.55）和居住在中部省份（调整后的优势比，1.59；95%置信区间，1.30-1.95）和南部省份（调整后的优势比，1.42；95%置信区间，1.11-1.81）。然而，另外三个因素——年龄、家庭户主的教育水平和苗-瑶族——与贫血呈负相关。为了解决老挝人民民主共和国 5 岁以下儿童贫血严重程度的问题。我们的研究结果强调需要设计一种有效的方法来解决与儿童贫血相关的每个因素。干预措施应侧重于预防儿童贫血，这被认为是老挝人民民主共和国公共卫生干预的一个主要重点。
