Assessing the correlates of wasting among children under five and their mothers in the Bay and Hiran regions of Somalia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

To address Somalia's high wasting burden, it is imperative to understand the country's context-specific correlates of wasting. We aimed to assess the correlates of wasting among children under five (CU5) and mothers in Bay and Hiran.

Methods

We analysed midline (CU5 n = 956; mothers n = 1066) and endline (CU5 n = 833; mothers n = 1023) data from a randomised controlled trial. We explored child (weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ)) and maternal outcomes (mid-upper arm circumferences) via linear regression for children and via Poisson regression for children and mothers, implementing a backwards elimination approach in a hierarchical way. We stratified CU5 models by region and age.

Results

CU5 wasting was 12.9% at midline and 14.4% at endline, with a higher burd

SUBMITTER: Grounds S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12699499 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature