Prevalence of anemia and its associated risk factors among urban school children of Chennai/ Tamilnadu

Abstract

Introduction: Anemia is one of the major public health problems among adolescence age group. In modern society intake of locally available of junk foods is common among different age groups which can lead up to other non communicable disorders in adults. On the other hand there is lot of low socioeconomic population living in urban area and their children are studying in urban schools that are exposed to commonly available neighboring foods around the school premises. These children when they don't have better performance in their academic career they become school dropouts and hunt for daily jobs for their survival. This study was done to find out the prevalence of clinical manifestation of anemia and associated factors among urban school children. Materials and Methods: a cross sectional study design done on urban school children in saligramam south Chennai from 2015-2017. Results: Prevalence of anemia was found to be 53.4% (95% CI 48.4-58.3). Males students were found to more 62.8% compared to female students 37.2%. In terms of grading of anemia mild 130(33.3%) moderate 64(16.4%) and severe 14(3.6%) respectively and remaining were found to be normal. In this study all student in the government schools were from low socio economic background. a higher prevalence of anemia among the students who had open air defecation, not wearing regular foot wares and not maintaining regular hand washing and who have a habit of taking regular food from the locally available shops and overweight individuals. On clinical examination of the study participants of 390 individuals 204(52.3) revealed pallor of conjunctiva, tongue and nail bed. Most of the children had 254 (65.1) individuals had either of the clinical manifestation of anemia. Conclusion: A higher prevalence of anemia has been found in this study among school children and their associated factors like open air defecation, regular frequent intake of outside foods and improper hand washing and underweight hence there should be periodic health examination and appropriate health education and health awareness has to sensitized to these individuals.