Food Chemistry & Nutrition

Biography

Biography: Addisu Mengestie

Abstract

The study covers a review on the assessment of nutritional status and major determinants of malnutrition children less than five years of age in Tongo refugee camp. A cross-sectional quantitative study in which the results were triangulate with key informant interview and focus group discussions results was applied to accomplish the stated objectives of the study. A systematic random sampling method to select the sampling units was used to obtain the required number of subjects. Two hundred and forty children were randomly selected from the camps that were getting food and other material support from the camp. Regarding to food supply of the refugees in the refugee camp, the majority of the households depend on the ration distributed to them monthly based on the number of the members of the households. The ration distributed to the refugees has deficiency both in quantity and quality. As to the food supply indicators used in the survey, 25% of the children show malnutrition problem, and children were diseased in malnutrition and related disorders. As to the result of this study, of all the sample children in the refugee camp, prevalence of sever and moderate acute malnutrition were 7.5% and 18.5%. This shows that the situation is critical in the camp. Mothers or caretakers reported that 32.5% of children 6-59 months of age had been sick in the previous two weeks preceding the survey. Diarrhea disease was the most frequently reported illness, followed by fever, acute respiratory infection, and malaria. The result of the crude mortality rate during this period was 1.25%. The under-five mortality rate was also 0.77. The result of the bivariate analysis shows that there were seven variables found to have statistically significant relationship with malnutrition in the refugee camp. Using the logisticregression of multivariate analysisvariables of disease (i.e. diarrhea and fever), age of the children and place of previous residence of the households were found with statistically significant effect on malnutrition compare to the other variables. This shows that food insecurity and diseases have high impact on malnutrition of the children. The effect of previous and present livelihood differences of the refugee households based on the households’ previous place of residence was also affect to the resilience and adaptation capability of the refugees for the different problems in the camp. Recommendations target the improvement of the food allocation in the camp both in its variety and amount, the improvement and expansion of the therapeutic and supplementary feeding programs and treating malnutrition related diseases have to emphasize in the camp. Furthermore, water sanitation and hygiene programs have to expand to improve the ease of access and utilization of these services by the refugees.