title: Prevalence and determinants of stunting in under-five children in central Tanzania: remaining threats to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Millennium Development Goal No 4 (MDG 4) requires countries to scale up interventions addressing malnutrition and other immediate determinants of burden of disease among children to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015, which is this year. Whereas globally some achievements have been registered, under-nourishment remains a significant problem in some developing countries such as Tanzania. This study set out to estimate the extent of stunting and its associated determinants to assess the progress made thus far towards achieving MDG 4 in Tanzania.
  
  
  METHODS
  A random sample of 678 households with under-five children was selected from two randomly selected wards of Kongwa district in Dodoma region, Tanzania. The WHO anthropometric calculator, which computes Z-scores using a reference population, was used to process the anthropometric measurement data taken from all the participants. Children with height for age Z-score of less than 2 were categorised as stunted and coded as 1 and the rest were coded as 0. Proportions of stunting were compared using the chi-square test to determine the association between stunting and the independent variables. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) of the independent determinants of stunting. The cut-off for significant association was set at p = 0.05. All these analyses used the STATA 12 software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  About half (49.7 %) of the children were stunted. This stunting was associated with belonging to households where the head of family was young (<35 years) (AOR = 0.67, 95 % CI 0.47-0.96, p = 0.031), young age of the mothers (AOR = 1.54, 95 % CI 1.06-2.24, p = 0.023), and economic variables such as owning a cellular phone (AOR = 0.66, 96 % CI 0.46-0.94, p = 0.023).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stunting was highly prevalent in Kongwa district despite general improvements in child nutritional status at the national level. Household characteristics and economic status were found to play a major role in child health. In this regard, disaggregated analyses are therefore important in identifying resilient areas in need of concerted efforts for the MDG 4 to be achieved nationwide.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 65014, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. innosemali@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Innocent Antony
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Semali
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health, School of Public Health and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 65014, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. atengia@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tengia-Kessy
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 65014, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. eliajelia@yahoo.co.uk.
authors.forename: Elia John
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Mmbaga
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 65014, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. gerryleyna@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Germana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Leyna
mesh_terms: D000886:Anthropometry; D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006130:Growth Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015995:Prevalence; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013636:Tanzania / Q000453:epidemiology