Socio-Demographic determinants of anemia among children aged 6-59 months in mainland Tanzania

Abstract

Anaemia is a disease which seriously affects young children and pregnant women. Knowledge of disease clustering is important because it may provide insights into the etiology of disease and risk factors operating within different levels of the clusters. In this study we identify Socio-demographic determinants of anaemia among children aged 6-59 months in the 21 regions Mainland Tanzania. Children with higher probability of occurrence of these determinant factors would be inferred to be most likely to experience anaemia. To answer the objective of the research question, models that handle the complexities of correlated data were employed. The models used were; Generalized Estimating Equations(GEE), Alternating Logistic Regression(ALR), Proportional Odds Model(POM) and Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM). Statistical findings revealed that the risk of being anaemic reduced with age while boys showed higher risk. Children in rural were found to be less likely to be anaemic. Children i