European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

The pervasiveness of undernutrition and anaemia in tribal women is still very high. It make women weak to bear the labour pain and survive in child delivery and they becomemore prone to infection and chronic diseases. The objective of this study to determine the demographical factor responsible for undernutrition and anaemia and its consequences among rural tribal area of Malkangiri district of Odisha using WHO standards of Anthropometric measurements. Materials and Methods: The study has been done on 240 random sample of tribal women of Santals, Koyas, Poraja and Bhumia tribes falling into category of 15-49 year age which have child bearing potential. The socio-demographical data on nutritional status, habits etc. has been obtained through structured questionnaire which is further followed by anthropometric assessment using standards methods. The haemoglobin level measured by Mission Hb haemoglobin testing meter. Statistical Analysis: Chi-square test used to find the association between demographical factor responsible for malnutrition and anaemia at p-0.05 level was used along with descriptive statistics like simple proportion, mean, standard deviation calculated using SPSS 16.0 version. Results: In this study, it was found that 74.16% womenare underweight and 87.08% women are anaemic. Among sociodemographic factors early marriage, education, occupation and, family size, drinking water facility and age of birth of first child shows strong association with undernutrition while family size, age at birth of first child and education have negative association with anaemia. Conclusions: Despite the high prevalence rates of underweight among reproductive aged women, relatively few risk factors were identified for these conditions, suggesting that focused and target based strategy, community- based intervention that have effective implementation is needed to address this issue effectively