THESIS RESEARCH SUBMITTED TO DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS, COLLEGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE, SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES, ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN APPLIED STATISTICS

Abstract

Anemia is a decrease in the total amount of red blood cells in the blood, or a lowered ability of the blood to carry oxygen. Anemia was caused by nutritional deficiencies, infection, and blood disorders. The aim of this study was to identify the risk factors for the prevalence of anemia among under five children. Our study fully relied on secondary data obtained from the 2016 Ethiopian demographic health survey (EDHS). The 2016 EDHS sample was selected using a stratified, two-stage cluster design. The selection of enumeration areas (EAs) were the first stage of sampling units. At the first stage the sample included 645 EAs, among these 202 were urban and 443 were rural areas. Households comprised the second stage of sampling. The lists of households were served as a sampling frame for the selection of 10641 units in the second stage of sampling. At the end ignoring missing values the data from 8335 households were selected for final analysis. We noticed out of 8335 children, 5326 (63.9%) were anemic and remaining 3009 (36.3%) were non-anemic and the prevalence of anemia in region of Somali, Oromia, Afar, SNNPR and Tigray showed high prevalence than Addis Abeba, Benshangul Gumuz, Gambela, Dire Dawa. Amhara and Hareri. Binary logistic regression and multi-level logistic regression models were used to identify risk factors for the prevalence of anemia among children aged less than five years. The result of the study showed that the region of residence, place of residence, source of drinking water, wealth index, size of child and age of children significantly predict the prevalence of anemia among children (p-value≤0.05). However, the remaining; higher education level parents, religion, marital status and taking iron could not showed a significant effect. The variation in prevalence of anemia among regional state of Ethiopia was 0.0989781(9.9%). Thus, we recommended that the Ministry of Health should give special attention to highly exposed regions, such as Somali, Oromia, Affar, SNNPR and Tigray. We also recommended that concerned bodies and health institutions should create awareness for families regarding the risk factors.