Assessing MDG achievement through under-5 child stunting in East African Community. Some insights from urban versus rural areas in Burundi and Rwanda using DHS2010.

This paper assesses the prevalence of stunting and its potential determinants using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in Rwanda and Burundi in 2010. Selected child, mother and household characteristics were described for rural and urban areas of each country and logistic regression model was constructed for each setting independently. The results show that male sex and increasing age were associated with stunting in the rural and urban children of both countries. The child’s size at birth was associated with it only in urban Rwanda and rural Burundi, and the fact that the child had not received vitamin A supplementation or vaccination only in the rural settings (Rwanda and Burundi respectively). Regarding mother’s characteristics, young age was a stunting potential risk factor in all settings except in urban Rwanda, and mother’s low educational level in all settings except for rural Rwanda, although the mother’s working status had a significant impact in the child’s nutritional status only in this country. Finally, low socioeconomic status at household level was associated with chronic malnutrition only in the rural settings, and the mother’s partner education and no sanitation in rural Burundi and urban Rwanda respectively. Nutrition programming should differentiate urban and rural contexts within a country. The 1000 days approach that advocates for interventions from conception to the second birthday of the child seems to be relevant as mother characteristics show a strong correlation with the child nutritional status. In rural area of both countries, access to health services should be enhanced.

NKUNZIMANA Tharcisse;  CUSTODIO CEREZALES Estefania;  PEREZ HOYOS Ana;  KAYITAKIRE Francois; 

2017-05-23

Springer International Publishing

JRC103699

978-3-319-30981-1,    978-3-319-30980-4 (print),   

2364-107X,   

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-30981-1_4,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC103699,   

10.1007/978-3-319-30981-1_4,