Abstract
BACKGROUND: Globally, anemia is a public health problem affecting children living in both developed and developing countries with bad consequences on children's cognitive, social, and economic development. OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence and predictors of anemia among children aged 6-23 months residing at Dodota district, Southeast Ethiopia. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from January-July 2019, at Dodota district, in Southeast Ethiopia. Multistage, random, and systematic sampling techniques were employed to recruit households and study participants. Trained community health extension workers were involved in the data collection. Data were entered into Epi_info 7.2.2 for clean-up and exported to SPSS 21 for analysis. Frequency and proportion were used to describe nominal and ordinal variables. Mean with SD were used to describe continuous variables. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to assess correlation between numeric variables. Regressional analysis was used to assess factors predicting the occurrence of anemia. P<0.05 with 95% CI was considered significant. RESULTS: A total of 917 children were included and the prevalence of anemia was found to be 407 (44.4%, 95% CI=41.1-47.4). When stratified to age category, the prevalence of anemia was highest among the age group of 6-12 months. Lack of ANC visits, lack of iron supplementation during pregnancy, untimely initiation of complementary feeding, and initiation of cow's milk before 1 year of age were factors associated with anemia. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of anemia was at the level of major public health problems. Antenatal and obstetric factors as well as child feeding practices were risk factors associated with anemia; and utilizing obstetric and childcare practices is highly recommended to mitigate this public health problem.