Why is stunting highest in Western Uganda?

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title> <bold>Background</bold> Stunted children have high risk of death and over 40 percent globally are in Sub-Sahara Africa. In Uganda, 29 percent of children under-five are stunted and this has remained high over the last one decade but worse in the Western region of the country. <bold>Methods</bold> We used pooled Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) data from 2001 to 2016 to establish factors that could explain stunting among children aged 24 to 59 months by applying a logit regression model. <bold>Results</bold> Results show that children whose mothers had attained higher levels of education were significantly associated with reduced odds (0.3) of stunting compared to those with no education. Children whose mothers had no access to health information were significantly associated with increased odds (1.4) of stunting compared to those who had access. Children who had had diarrhea two weeks prior to the survey were associated with higher odds (1.5) of stunting compared to those who did not have it. <bold>Conclusions</bold> The findings call for increased education of the girl child, increased access to health information to mothers, prevention and prompt treatment of diarrhea.