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Background: Stunting is predominantly irreversible nutritional deficiency disorder of children. Evidences on the impact of women empowerment to reduce child stunting are limited in Ethiopia.
Objective: To determine the association between women empowerment on stunting among children aged 6 to 59 months from the2016 Ethiopian
Demographicand HealthSurveydatasets.
Methods:Thestudyused theEthiopianDemographicandHealth Survey 2016 dataset,whichisa
crosssectionalstudy.Thestudyparticipantswere currentmarriedwomenofthereproductiveage(15–
49years)grouplivingwiththeirhusbandsorpartnerswhohavechildrenaged6-59monthsinthehousehold
whowerealiveatthetimeofthesurvey.Data selectedandexportedtoSPSSversion22foranalysis. Complex
sample binary logistic regressionanalysis was employedtodeterminetheassociationbetweenchildren
stunting aged 6-59 months and the predictor variables.Inaddition,multivariable logistic
regressionmodelwas performedusing variablesthatare
significantatPvalue
≤.05with95%ofconfidencelevel.
Result:The prevalence of stunting among children aged 6- 59 month with 95% confidence interval
was 41%(3,318) (95%CI: 39% - 43.3%). Around 45 %( 3806) of mothers employed in the last 12
months before the survey. Among mothers who had a job, 2072(54%) had seasonal jobs and the rest
1734(45%) had jobs throughout the year. About 50.5 %( 1921)of the mothers have been not paid
for the job they were engaged with. Approximately 5855(69%) of mothers have had a positive
attitude towards the husband justifying hitting or beating his wife.Maternal attitude towards wife
beating (AOR [95% CI]) = 1.057[0.889, 1.256]), decision on large household purchase (AOR [95%
CI] = 1.001[0.807, 1.243])had no association with child stunting.In contrast, Household wealth
index (AOR [95% CI]) = 1.98 [1.44, 2.726]), Maternal height (AOR [95%CI] = 1.9[1.280, 2.82]), child
sex (AOR [95% CI] = 1.255[1.077, 1.463]) were significantly associate with child stunting.
Conclusion and recommendation: The study indicated very high child stunting among children
age 6-59 month. It also identified low women’s economic and socio-familial empowerment. Thus, it
is recommended thatMinistry of Health up to local health service authority should strengthen their
effort on the implementation programs which aim to improve childhood undernutrition. Advocacy
programs should be introduced to strengthen the practice on implementation policies and
proclamation that enshrines women’ right so as to support women empowerment and thereby improve young childhood nutrition in Ethiopia. |
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