PMID- 26044618
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20151208
LR  - 20181202
IS  - 1471-2458 (Electronic)
IS  - 1471-2458 (Linking)
VI  - 15
DP  - 2015 Jun 5
TI  - Caste-based social inequalities and childhood anemia in India: results from the 
      National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2005-2006.
PG  - 537
LID - 10.1186/s12889-015-1881-4 [doi]
LID - 537
AB  - BACKGROUND: Caste is one of the traditional measures of social segregation in 
      India and differs from other indicators as it is both, endogamous and hereditary. 
      Evidence suggests that belonging to lower castes exposes one to social 
      inequalities and affects health adversely. We examined the association of caste 
      with childhood anemia in India and explored the effect modifying role of adult 
      education and household wealth. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of National 
      Family Health Survey (NFHS) data of 43,484 children aged 6-59 months was 
      performed. Poisson regression analysis was conducted to study the association 
      between caste and childhood anemia accounting for various maternal, child, and 
      household related variables. Caste was categorized as "other caste" (least 
      disadvantageous), "other backward caste", "scheduled tribe" and "scheduled caste" 
      (most disadvantageous). Anemia was defined as mild (hemoglobin level 7-11 g/dL), 
      moderate (hemoglobin level 5-7 g/dL) and severe (hemoglobin level <5 g/dL). 
      RESULTS: We found that children in scheduled caste had higher risk of having 
      anemia [mild anemia: RR = 1.10, 95% CI = 1.05-1.15; moderate anemia: RR = 1.19, 
      95% CI = 1.14-1.24; severe anemia: RR = 1.87, 95% CI = 1.51-2.31] after 
      accounting for child, maternal and household covariates including adult education 
      and household wealth. The interaction of caste with adult education and household 
      wealth was not statistically significant for any level of anemia. Sensitivity 
      analyses for children born to mothers of age >/= 18 years at first child birth and 
      body mass index (BMI) >/= 18.5 kg/m(2), resulted in similar findings. CONCLUSION: 
      Caste is an independent determinant of childhood anemia in India. The level of 
      adult education and household wealth did not modify the association between caste 
      and childhood anemia. The findings may be used for countering childhood anemia 
      and it may be beneficial to target future public health actions towards 
      disadvantageous castes in India.
FAU - Vart, Priya
AU  - Vart P
AD  - Department of Health Sciences, Community and Occupational Medicine, University 
      Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. 
      vart.priya@yahoo.co.uk.
FAU - Jaglan, Ajay
AU  - Jaglan A
AD  - Department of Paediatrics, Medical College Guwahati, Guwahati, India. 
      jaglanajay8@gmail.com.
FAU - Shafique, Kashif
AU  - Shafique K
AD  - School of Public Health, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan. 
      kashif.shafique@Glasgow.ac.uk.
AD  - Institute of Health & Wellbeing, Public Health, University of Glasgow, 1-Lilybank 
      Gardens, Glasgow, UK. kashif.shafique@Glasgow.ac.uk.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20150605
PL  - England
TA  - BMC Public Health
JT  - BMC public health
JID - 100968562
SB  - IM
MH  - Adolescent
MH  - Adult
MH  - Child
MH  - Child, Preschool
MH  - Cross-Sectional Studies
MH  - *Family Health
MH  - Female
MH  - *Health Status Indicators
MH  - Health Surveys
MH  - Humans
MH  - India
MH  - Infant
MH  - Male
MH  - Middle Aged
MH  - Poisson Distribution
MH  - Regression Analysis
MH  - *Social Class
MH  - Young Adult
PMC - PMC4456806
EDAT- 2015/06/06 06:00
MHDA- 2015/12/15 06:00
PMCR- 2015/06/05
CRDT- 2015/06/06 06:00
PHST- 2014/09/15 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2015/05/27 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2015/06/06 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2015/06/06 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2015/12/15 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2015/06/05 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 10.1186/s12889-015-1881-4 [pii]
AID - 1881 [pii]
AID - 10.1186/s12889-015-1881-4 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - BMC Public Health. 2015 Jun 5;15:537. doi: 10.1186/s12889-015-1881-4.