The Burden of Childhood Anemia in Bangladesh: Does Socioeconomic Status Matter?

Childhood anemia is a global public health problem that is associated with life-threatening consequences such as growth retardation, impaired motor and cognitive development, and increased morbidity and mortality. Anemia can be caused by a variety of factors such as nutritional deficiencies (i.e., iron, folic acid, vitamin B12, and vitamin A), infections (i.e., helminth), and blood disorders (i.e., hemoglobinopathies). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 50% of anemia cases can be attributed to iron deficiency. This is an estimated global average that varies widely depending upon the location in question. The World Bank estimates for 2011 claim that approximately 55.60% of all Bangladeshi children under five years of age are suffering from anemia. The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) inequality and anemia among the children has never been conclusively and it is unclear if the children of the age group of 6-59 months have uniformly high levels of anemia during all the stages of development, e.g., during the infant, toddler, and preschool stages. In addition, there is a dearth of evidence from Bangladesh, where the meaning of sociodemographic characteristics may be different from that in other countries. Therefore, this study attempts to fill the above-mentioned lacuna by investigating and evaluating the association of SES inequality, among other explanatory variables, on the development of childhood anemia during different stages of child development and to answer the questions: (a) Is SES a factor impeding childhood anemia along with other explanatory variables? (b) In which stage of child development, the chance of disparaging with childhood anemia is highest? (c) Is there evidence of between child development stages differences in the strength and form of association disparities between having childhood anemia and SES? (c) What are the predictive margins for SES-associated anemia in the case of infants, toddlers, and preschool children? The results of this analysis will be reported for elucidating the potential effects of SES and the stages of child development that are usually neglected in the conventional scientific literature. Moreover, as anemia is one of the current key health issues in Bangladesh, it is also expected that the findings of this study would contribute significantly toward shaping the health policy strategy of the country.