The Leadership Initiative for Public Health in East Africa

Personal tools

Log in
Join

Children’s anemia levels in West Africa: a good proxy for malaria morbidity?

Description

Malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in young children in sub-Saharan Africa. Major public health initiatives, such as the Roll Back Malaria program, have made it a global health priority to improve the malaria situation in the next decade. In Africa, however, routine health information is not available to monitor progress on reducing malaria morbidity. The objective of this paper is to examine the utility of using child hemoglobin measures collected in population-based studies as an indicator to monitor changes in the malaria situation. A logistic regression analysis models the effects of malaria prevalence on the probability of serious anemia (Hb<8 g/dl) while controlling for child nutrition and other factors hypothesized to relate to anemia. Individual-level information on children age 6-59 months in five sub-Sahara African countries includes geospatially linked data from three sources: child health and sociodemographic information from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS); malaria prevalence estimates from the Mapping Malaria Risk in Africa (MARA) project; and urban extent measures from the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). Findings indicate that children in areas of moderate malaria prevalence run the highest risk of serious anemia. These findings are not unlike findings from previous studies, and plausible explanations are presented. Hemoglobin measures are reliable measures of anemia (and if untreated, anemia is an almost inevitable outcome of malaria especially in children 6-23 months); the validity of hemoglobin measures depends on whether or not the anemia test takes place in malaria transmission season.

Remote Size

590.5 kB

Remote Content type

application/pdf

Remote Modification Date