Background: Malnutrition at the early stages of life can lower child resistance to infections, increase child morbidity and mortality, and decrease mental development and cognitive achievement. Adequate nutrition is the keystone of survival, health and development not only of current generations but also of the ones to come. Child malnutrition is a major public health problem in Ethiopia. Objectives: To assess the magnitude and factors associated with malnutrition of children 6 to 59 months of age in Dollo Ado district, Somali region. Methods: A community based, cross-sectional study was conducted on 541 mother-child pairs of 6-59 month old children in December 2012. Anthropometric measurements of height and weight of 541 study children were taken with physical examination to identify the severe form of malnutrition and the socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects were collected using a questionnaire. Both anthropometric and non anthropometric data were entered using Epi-Info version 3.5.2. The data were analyzed using SPSS Version 16.0. Both bivariate and multivariate analysis (logistic regression model) was used to identify the determinants of child malnutrition.

Results: Result of the study revealed that the overall prevalence of malnutrition in the community was high with 42.3% of the children being wasted, 34.4% for stunting and 47.7% for underweight. All three forms of malnutrition (wasting, stunting and underweight) was more prevalent among boys than girls with a statistically significant of P<0.031. Prevalence of wasting was higher among young children while stunting and underweight were more likely to be observed in older children. Regression analysis shows that the significant determinants of malnutrition were gender and age of child, marital status, maternal education, monthly HH income, decision making, having of livestock, presence of ARI, total number of children ever born, health status during pregnancy, pre-lactation practice, mode of feeding, access to clean water and type of floor in the households. Conclusions: The prevalence of child malnutrition among the under five children was high, indicating that the nutrition situation in study area is very critical. Thus, malnutrition is a major public health problem. Further in-depth studies should also be encouraged to look for improved interventions.