ARIMA FORECASTING OF THE PREVALENCE OF ANEMIA IN CHILDREN IN ETHIOPIA

Childhood anemia is a preventable condition.High prevalence rates of childhood anemia in Ethiopia can be prevented and or controlled.Using annual time series data ontheprevalence of anemia in children under 5 years of age in Ethiopiafrom 1990 –2016, the studymakes predictions for the period 2017 –2025.The paperapplies the Box-Jenkins ARIMA methodology. ThediagnosticADF tests show that, AE, theseries under consideration is an I (0) variable. Based on the AIC,the paperpresents the ARIMA (5, 0, 0) model as the parsimoniousmodel. Thediagnostic testsfurther revealsthat the presented model isstable andits residualsare not serially correlated.The results of the study indicate that theprevalence of anemia in Ethiopian children is expected to increase over the out-of-sample period