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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1535957
This article is part of the Research Topic Transforming Food Systems: Addressing Malnutrition and Inequality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries View all 18 articles
Determinants of Child Malnutrition and Morbidity in Ethiopia: A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Approach
Provisionally accepted- 1 Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
- 2 University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
- 3 Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia
- 4 College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
Ethiopia, highlighting the need to assess the risk factors contributing to these issues for effective prevention and control strategies. Thus, this study aims to investigate the underlying risk factors by employing a structural equation model to analyze malnutrition as a mediator in the relationship between selected factors and morbidity. Methods: The study utilized data from the 2016 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey and a sample of 8560 under-five children were considered. The structural equation model (SEM) was used to examine the association between child malnutrition, morbidity, and potential risk factors.Results: Out of 8560 sampled children, 12.80% was wasted, 34.75% stunted, 23.91 underweight, 13.9% had fever, 11.2% had diarrhea and 59.7% had anemic. Birth interval, wealth index household, place of delivery, size of child at birth, number of children under and socio-economic condition had a significant direct effect on child's malnutrition and morbidity. Time to get water, toilet facility, and child is twin had direct effect on child malnutrition and had no significant direct effect on child morbidity. Time to get water, birth interval, toilet facility, wealth index of household, child is twin, place of delivery, size of child, and number of children exhibited an indirect effect on morbidity through malnutrition.The study revealed that there was a high prevalence of malnutrition and morbidity among under-five children in Ethiopia. Time to get water in min, place of delivery, size of child, and number of children, showed a significant indirect and total effect on morbidity through malnutrition and socio-economic conditions showed a significant total effect on morbidity via malnutrition. Implementing and extending programs such as community-based nutrition interventions for early childhood, as early malnutrition showed long-term effects on growth and immunity is critical, particularly in the regions of Affar,
Keywords: Under-five children, Malnutrition, Morbidity, Anemia, Structural Equation Modeling
Received: 28 Nov 2024; Accepted: 17 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Belay, Betela and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Denekew Bitew Belay, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
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