Prevalence of anaemia and its epidemiological correlates among women of reproductive age group in an urban slum of Mumbai

Abstract

Background: Anaemia is a major public health problem affecting children, adolescent, women of reproductive age groups and lactating mothers worldwide. As per NFHS-IV data, prevalence of anaemia in India is 53%. This study was done to assess the prevalence of anaemia and its epidemiological correlates among women in reproductive age groups in an urban slum of Mumbai. Methods: This community based cross-sectional study was carried out in an urban slum in Mumbai. Total 315 women in the reproductive age groups (15-49 years) were enrolled in the study. Samples were selected by stratified random sampling from various sectors. All respondents were interviewed and haemoglobin estimation was done with Sahli’s method. Data was analysed using SPSS version 20.0 and chi-square test was used to find out the association between two qualitative variables. Results: The prevalence of mild, moderate and severe anaemia was 37.1%, 9.5% and 2.9% respectively. The factors associated with anaemia were education (p value=0.0001), socio-economic status (p value=0.001), consumption of iron rich food (p value=0.0001) and interval between two successive pregnancy in years (p value=0.0001). Conclusions: The findings of the present study revealed that education, socioeconomic status, consumption of iron rich food, interval between successive pregnancies affect the overall blood haemoglobin level on a long run. Community awareness regarding education and schooling of girls will help to increase the education level of women and would indirectly help to increase the health awareness and decrease the prevalence of anaemia.

Factors associated with anemia among female adult vegetarians in Malaysia

“…Menstruation is among the factors that could be associated with anemia due to periodic blood loss [12], which explains the rationale of the classification of age groups in this study, provided that the average year of menopause among Malaysian women is 50 years old [12]. On the other hand, a study in India reported that women from the age group below 25 years old tended to be more affected by anemia [16]. A possible explanation for the variation might be the common occurrence of teenage pregnancy in India considering that half of them usually fall pregnant with a maternal age below 20 years old, while more than one fourth fall pregnant before 18 years old [35].…”

“…Existing research recognizes a high prevalence of anemia among the vegetarian population. For example, a cross-sectional study was conducted among women aged 15 to 49 years in an urban slum from Mumbai, India who had been taking a mixed diet (47.4%), and the results showed that they were less anemic than those who were vegetarians (64.4%) [16]. Another cross-sectional study in Rajasthan, India showed that all of the female vegetarians were anemic [17].…”

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Anemia among Reproductive-Aged Women in Sayint Adjibar Town, Northeast Ethiopia: Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

“…This result is consistent with the EDHS report of 2016 (23%) [ 11 ], a study conducted in Sidama zone of Southern Ethiopia (21.3%) [ 25 ]. On the other hand, it is lower than other studies conducted in Coimbatore district, India (64.4%) [ 26 ], in urban slums of Lucknow city, India (69%) [ 27 ], in Bursa, Turkey (32.8%) [ 28 ], Tanzania (39.6%) [ 29 ], Bangladesh (41.3%) [ 30 ], in urban slum of Mumbai, India (49.5%) [ 31 ], and Nepal city (37.6%) [ 18 ]. Moreover, the prevalence of anemia in this study was higher than those of the studies conducted in Jimma, Ethiopia (16%) [ 32 ], 2011's WHO report for Ethiopia (19%) [ 12 ], in rural Tabas, Iran 13.8% [ 33 ], and Vietnam 19.7% [ 34 ].…”

“…This undernutrition, in turn, leads to the development of anemia. However, other studies in Jimma, Ethiopia, and in an urban slum of Mumbai, India, showed that age category between 25 and 35 had a greater risk of developing anemia than other age groups [ 31 , 32 ]. Age category also significantly associated with anemia in a study conducted in Nepal city, but they found that being in the young age category was a risk factor for anemia [ 18 ].…”

“…e median (IQR) age of the study participants was 25 [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] years. From a total of 359 study participants, the majority-169 (47.1%)-of them were in the age group of 15-24 years.…”