Abstract
Background: Stunting has long-term effects on individuals and societies, including poor cognition and educational performance, low adult wages, and lost productivity. When accompanied by excessive weight gain later in childhood, stunting increases the risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases in adult life. This study aimed to estimate the effects of family economic status and illness history on stunting in children under five.
Subjects and Method: A meta-analysis was carried out using the PRISMA guidelines and the PICO format. Population: children under five. Intervention: high socioeconomic status and illness history. Comparison: low socioeconomic status and no illness history. Outcome: Stunting. Articles of cross-sectional studies were collected from Google Scholar, PubMed, and Science Direct databases. The searching strategy used keywords: “economic factor” AND “child disease” AND “stunting determinant” AND “cross-sectional”. The data from the articles were extracted using RevMan 5.3.
Results: A meta-analysis included 15 cross-sectional studies from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Burundi, and Ghana. The total sample was 38,406 children. The risk of stunting decreased with high socioeconomic status (aOR= 0.46; 95% CI= 0.41 to 0.50; p= 0.001). The risk of stunting increased with illness history (aOR= 1.98; 95% CI= 1.52 to 2.57; p= 0.001).
Conclusion: The risk of stunting decreases with high socioeconomic status. The risk of stunting increases with illness history.
Keywords: socioeconomic status, illness history, stunting, children under five.
Article Data
