Regional Variation in the Prevalence of Undernutrition and its Correlates Among Under Five-Year Children in North India.

Background: Undernutrition is an important public health problem affecting one-third of under five-year-old children in India. Objectives: To assess the nutritional status of under five-year-old children along with child feeding practices. Materials and Methods: We adopted a systematic sampling procedure to carry out this community-based, cross-sectional study in all the districts of Haryana. Data was collected on socioeconomic and demographic particulars along with anthropometric measurements. Analysis was done using SPSS Windows 23. Results: The overall prevalence of stunting, underweight, and wasting was 34%, 27.5%, and 11%, while that of severe undernutrition was 11%, 8%, and 3%, respectively. The odds of underweight were significantly higher among children of the Muslim religion, children of scheduled caste, children of illiterate mothers, lower per capita income, HHs without electricity, landless HHs, low birth weight, no ANC care, and those early ages at complementary feeding. Stunting was significantly higher among children whose mothers were illiterate, children whose fathers were laborers, among landless HHs, with no separate kitchen and lower birth weight, while wasting was higher among children of Muslim religion, children of scheduled caste, with no sanitary latrine facility, low-birth-weight children and early initiation of complementary feeding. Conclusions: Undernutrition is observed to be associated with religion, community, education of mother, per capita income, land holding status, birth weight, and age at complementary feeding. Thus, improving maternal nutrition can improve birth weight, improving maternal knowledge about child feeding, and the household's socio-economic status may improve the nutritional status of children.

Diet & nutrition profile of Chenchu population - A vulnerable tribe in Telangana & Andhra Pradesh, India.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Earlier studies have documented high prevalence of undernutrition, morbidity and mortality among Chenchus, a tribal population in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, India. The present study was carried out to assess diet and nutritional status of Chenchus and cause of death. METHODS: A total of 42 Chenchu villages (gudems) were covered using systematic random sampling procedure. In each gudem, all the households with at least one child under the age of five years were covered for various investigations. Weighment diet survey was carried out on a sub-sample of households. In addition, information on cause of death in the selected 42 gudems was collected for past one year using verbal autopsy method. RESULTS: A total of 1396 subjects of all age groups were covered for various investigations. The intakes of food and nutrients were lower than the recommended levels. The prevalences of underweight, stunting and wasting among under five children were 42 per cent (CI: 37.9-46.1), 53 and 13 per cent, respectively, while 41 per cent (CI: 37.8-47.2) men and 42 per cent (34.4-47.8) women had chronic energy deficiency (BMI<18.5 kg/m [2] ). Sixty eight deaths were reported during the past one year in 42 Chenchu gudems. The major causes of death were premature delivery, low birth weight, alcoholic cirrhosis of liver, accidents, snakebite and pulmonary tuberculosis. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of undernutrition in Chenchu population was comparable with other tribal and rural counterparts in Andhra Pradesh, however, the crude death rate (11.7/1000) was higher among the Chenchus. Steps may be taken to promote consumption of balanced diet and utilization of optimal healthcare facilities to control morbidity and mortality.

Commingling and segregation analysis of blood pressure in consanguineous and nonconsanguineous families from Andhra Pradesh, India.

The hypothesis of a major gene effect for systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was examined in families from Andhra Pradesh, India, where consanguinity and marriage within caste are commonly practiced. The data were examined separately by noninbred versus complete (inbred + noninbred) families, both before and after correction for residual skewness. For SBP in the noninbred sample prior to skewness transformation, evidence consistent with a relatively common major recessive gene (q = 0.31) accounted for approximately 30% of the variance. In the combined sample, although Mendelian τs were rejected, the major gene estimates were similar to those in the noninbred data, and failure to account for inbreeding in the likelihood function may have influenced the results. After transformation of the data for residual skewness only a multifactorial component resulted, which accounted for about 80% (complete sample) and 100% (noninbred sample) of the offspring variance, and less than 10% of the parental variance. Even though the major gene effect disappeared after skewness transformation, the putative recessive major gene found for SBP prior to the transformation may be genuine since the tests on the transmission probabilities supported Mendelian transmission while the equal τs hypothesis was rejected. For DBP, both a major nontransmissible effect accounting for about 20% of the variance and a multifactorial component accounting for about 55% (offspring) and about 15% (parents) was found. For the noninbred DBP data, transformation for residual skewness removed the major non-Mendelian effect altogether. These data suggest inbreeding effects for SBP, with a pattern of smaller variances due to multifactorial sources (i.e., polygenic and/or cultural) in the sample which included consanguineous families. Adding inbred families reduced the evidence for Mendelian transmission of the major effect. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.