Changes in the Geographical Distribution of Stunting among Three-year-olds in Côte d’Ivoire

Changes in the Geographical Distribution of Stunting among Three-year-olds in Côte d’Ivoire

Serious growth retardations, also called stunting, are measured by deviations from the norm determined by the World Health Organization (WHO) growths standards for the relationship of body length to age for children (1). The main cause of stunting is malnutrition of mother and child.

Within the countries affected by stunting, like in Ivory Coast, the share of growth-retarded children differs widely from region to region. How the frequency of stunting in the north and south of Ivory Coast as well as in Abidjan changed between 1994 and 2011 is now described in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

Between 1994 and 2011, the share of stunted under three-year-old Ivorian children decreased only slightly from 30.7% to 27.8%. Within these seventeen years of observation, however, the risk for stunting fell noticeably in the south of the country by about a third, while it almost doubled in Abidjan. Inventions should consider these regional differences in their programs.

Read and see more:
(1) Vgl. M De Onis und F Branca. Childhood stunting: a global perspective. Matern Child Nutr. 2016;12 (S1):12–26. Available via: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27187907
(2) E Barankanira et al. Stunting among children under 3 years of age in Côte d’Ivoire: spatial and temporal variations between 1994 and 2011. Public Health Nutr. 2017 Apr 3:1-13. doi: 10.1017/S1368980017000544. Available via: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28367794

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