Objective: Child undernutrition is a serious public health problem in many lowand
middle-income countries. Data on child undernutrition prevalence and its
risk factors in Armenia are limited. The present study aimed to estimate the
prevalence and explore the predictors of undernutrition among children aged
5–17 months in Yerevan.
Design: The study was cross-sectional and employed a review of the ambulatory
charts of children selected through a multistage cluster sampling. This phase was
followed by a case–control study. The cases were undernourished children
identified during the record review and randomly matched with normally
growing controls of the same age and gender from the same pool of records.
Mothers of cases and controls participated in a telephone interview. The study
used conditional logistic regression analysis.
Setting: Yerevan, Armenia.
Subjects: Children aged 5–17 months residing in Yerevan, Armenia.
Results: Review of 570 ambulatory charts suggested the prevalence of stunting,
underweight and wasting among 5–17-month-old children in Yerevan to be 17?9%,
7?3% and 3?1%, respectively. The case–control study of eighty-nine matched pairs
identified four significant predictors of child undernutrition: family’s socio-economic
status score (P 5 0?030), child’s length at birth (P 5 0?027), duration of predominant
breast-feeding (P 5 0?046) and food diversity score (P 5 0?039).
Conclusions: The factors determining growth patterns of children in Yerevan are
mostly behavioral and environmental, hence modifiable. Reducing poverty and
inequalities in food availability, promoting breast-feeding and adequate complementary
feeding, and ensuring optimal care before, during and after pregnancy
are likely to help reduce child undernutrition in Yerevan, Armenia and societies with
similar public health concerns.