| dc.description.abstract | Anaemia is one of the most prevalent micronutrient deficiency disorders of major public
health concern in Kakuma refugee camp. Little or no efforts have been made to identify the
associated risk factors and their relative importance and interactions with the prevalence of
anaemia.
A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the risk factors associated with the
occurrence of anaemia and the type of relationships between the identified factors and anaemia.
The population ofKakuma Refugee Camp is heterogeneous in composition comprising of more
than ten nationalities. A total of300 children aged 6-59 months were selected for the study using
a combination of proportionate allocation of stratified sampling and systematic random
sampling. The number of children aged 6-59 months selected from each nationality was as
follows: Sudanese (181), Somali Bantu (70), Somali (33) and other minorities (16). The
haemocue technique was used to determine the anaemia status of the children, from whom
capillary whole blood was drawn. A pre-tested and structured questionnaire was administered to
obtain household demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Anthropometries
measurements, data on morbidity and food consumption habits of the children were also
collected.
The overall prevalence of anaemia was 93.0% with the following severity ranges; 1.0%
of very severe «4 g/dl), 28.3% severe (4.0-6.9 g/dl), 52.7% moderate (7.0-10.0 g/dl) and 11.0%
(l 0.1-10.9 g/dl) mild cases. The following factors were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with
anaemia by linear regression: age, birth weight, weight, mid-up per-arm circumference, duration
of exclusive breast-feeding, age of introducing complementary foods, stunting and under weight.
Using the logistic regression the following factors were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with
anaemia: ethnicity of household head, mothers and fathers education, fathers occupation,
accessibility to therapeutic feeding program and iron supplement, having a current episode
(within 2 weeks) of malaria and diarrhoea and tea consumption.
In conclusion, supply of food ration, duration of exclusive breastfeeding, underweight,
birth weight, stunting and consumption of tea are the most predictors and, hence, determinants of
iron deficiency for the under-five year old child population living in the refugee camp. To reduce
the prevalence of anaemia in the area, a holistic approach is required. To achieve this, the study
recommends: a review of the policy in minimum standards guiding food rations; adoption of
improving the general ration, both in quantity and quality, to the refugee community; initiation of
nutrition education programmes at community level aimed at improving child feeding practices,
vegetable gardening, and meal preparation; public health measures to control malaria and
diarrhoeal disease such as sanitation, hygiene, treatment and use of mosquito nets and
strengthening of the existing selective feeding (therapeutic feeding programme and
supplementary feeding programme) programmes as some of the possible ways of managing the
problem. | en |
