Childhood undernutrition in Nigeria

One-third of all undernourished children globally reside in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) including Nigeria. The main aim of this thesis was to examine child undernutrition in Nigeria. Specifically, this thesis examined the following: (i) systematic review of factors associated with undernutrition in SSA. (ii) meta-analysis of prevalence of undernutrition in SSA. (iii) Factors associated with stunting and severe stunting among children under-five years in Nigeria. (iv) Factors associated with wasting and underweight among children under-five years in Nigeria. (v) Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood undernutrition in Nigeria using the decomposition method. This thesis utilized data from the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of 31 SSA countries and the 2003, 2008, and 2013 Nigeria DHS. Meta-analysis of prevalence was used to estimate the prevalence of undernutrition indicators within the four sub-regions of SSA. The Odds Ratio was estimated using Generalized Linear Latent and Mixed models (GLLAM) with the logit link and binomial family that adjusted for cluster and survey weights after controlling for potential confounders in order to determine associated factors with undernutrition indicators. The decomposition method was used to examine socioeconomic inequalities trend. Five published papers that addressed the research aims have been integrated to form the core of this thesis. These published papers are presented as individual chapters in this thesis and are described below. Chapter 1 identifies common associated factors with childhood stunting, wasting and underweight in the four sub-regions of SSA through a systematic review of relevant studies. This study found that the most consistent factors are: low mother’s education, increasing child’s age, sex of child (male), wealth index/low SES (poor household), prolonged duration of BF (>12 months), low birth weight, mother’s age (<20 years), source of drinking water (unimproved), low mother’s BMI (