The Prevalence Rate of Malnutrition in Children Younger than 5 in Iran in 2018

The first stage of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) was founded Iran to achieve better access to needed health services.

The aim of present study was to illustrate the prevalence rate of malnutrition’s subtypes in under 5‑year old children after UHC in comparison with before that. Settings and Design: In a cross‑sectional study in 2018, anthropometric indices of 970 under 5 years old children in rural and small towns of Isfahan province were gathered from their health files by cluster randomized sampling method.

Children whose weight for age, height for age, and weight for height were lower than ‑2SD based on Z score, were marked as underweight, stunting, and wasting, respectively. Children, whose weight for age was upper than +2SD, were marked as overweight. Statistical Analysis Used: The T‑test, Chi‑square, and logistic regression tests were used for determination of association between malnutrition’s subtypes and demographic variables.

A total of 78 (8.04%) of under 5 years old children were wasting, 74 (7.63%) were underweight, and 82 (8.45%) were stunting. Also, 12 (1.23%) of the children from the same group were overweight.

The prevalence rate of underweight and stunting in under 5 years old children were less than before UHC implementation period. The prevalence rate of overweight children below 5 in Isfahan province’s villages and small towns was low.