PMID- 36730352
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20230206
LR  - 20230406
IS  - 1932-6203 (Electronic)
IS  - 1932-6203 (Linking)
VI  - 18
IP  - 2
DP  - 2023
TI  - Prevalence of anemia among reproductive women in different social group in India: 
      Cross-sectional study using nationally representative data.
PG  - e0281015
LID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281015 [doi]
LID - e0281015
AB  - BACKGROUND: The common cause of anemia in the general population is iron 
      deficiency. Anemia is adversely affecting women of reproductive age and child 
      health which in turn results in increased morbidity and maternal death, and also 
      hamper social-economic growth. Reproductive women are more prone to anemia due to 
      inadequate dietary intake and iron loss during menstruation and pregnancy. 
      OBJECTIVES: This study examined the level and trend of anemia prevalence among 
      the socially disadvantaged group (SC&ST, OBC) of women as compared to the other 
      women (general) and identified the main responsible factors behind this. DATA AND 
      METHODS: The data for this analysis has been taken from three rounds of National 
      Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted during 2005-2006 (NFHS 3), 2015-16 (NFHS 4) 
      and 2019-21 (NFHS 5). Univariate and bivariate analyses were used to assess the 
      level of anemia among reproductive age group women of different social groups. 
      The regression model represents the relative risk of different confounding 
      factors on the occurrence of anemia. GIS technique used for graphical 
      representation of anemia prevalence rate among different social groups of women 
      in different states of India. RESULT: In India more than 15 states belong to the 
      high prevalence (>%55) of anemia among socially backward groups in 2019-21. The 
      anemia prevalence was high (>55%) in all social groups (SC & ST, OBC, general) 
      observed in 7 states in NFHS-3, 4 in NFHS-4 and 11 states in NFHS-5. The overall 
      result reveals that the SC&ST women were more prone to any anemia than OBC and 
      general women and the prevalence rate slightly increased from 2005-06 to 2019-21. 
      Among all variables, economic status dominantly controls the anemia level in all 
      social groups. Anemia prevalence of the poor and poorest group of general women 
      were much worse than the women of richer and richest groups of SC&ST, OBC. The 
      odds of women having anemia were lower among higher educated and urban women as 
      compared to the non educated and rural women, irrespective of social group. The 
      prevalence of anemia decreases with increased age of women and increases with the 
      number of child bearing. All differences were statistically significant. 
      CONCLUSIONS: The problem of iron deficiency remains a major issue in India, where 
      the majority of the states (eastern, north-eastern and central) suffer from high 
      anemia prevalence rate and it increases over time. It is observed that multiple 
      socio-demographic factors ranging from poor economic and educational status, 
      rural residence to higher childbearing of women are responsible for predicting 
      anemia levels among the social groups of women in India. To eradicate this 
      problem India should improve women's overall nutrition status and their income. 
      Meanwhile, GOI should be more focused on the existing policies related to anemia 
      and on their actual implementation on grassroots level.
CI  - Copyright: (c) 2023 Sharif et al. This is an open access article distributed under 
      the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted 
      use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author 
      and source are credited.
FAU - Sharif, Nowaj
AU  - Sharif N
AD  - Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, 
      Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India.
FAU - Das, Bhaswati
AU  - Das B
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-6578-1416
AD  - Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, 
      Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India.
FAU - Alam, Asraful
AU  - Alam A
AD  - Department of Geography, Serampore Girls' College, University of Calcutta, 
      Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20230202
PL  - United States
TA  - PLoS One
JT  - PloS one
JID - 101285081
SB  - IM
MH  - Pregnancy
MH  - Humans
MH  - Female
MH  - Cross-Sectional Studies
MH  - Social Group
MH  - Prevalence
MH  - *Anemia/epidemiology
MH  - India/epidemiology
MH  - *Iron Deficiencies
PMC - PMC9894404
COIS- The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
EDAT- 2023/02/03 06:00
MHDA- 2023/02/07 06:00
PMCR- 2023/02/02
CRDT- 2023/02/02 13:56
PHST- 2022/10/18 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2023/01/12 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2023/02/02 13:56 [entrez]
PHST- 2023/02/03 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2023/02/07 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2023/02/02 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - PONE-D-22-28727 [pii]
AID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281015 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - PLoS One. 2023 Feb 2;18(2):e0281015. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281015. 
      eCollection 2023.