Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul;63(4):497-505.
doi: 10.5468/ogs.19196. Epub 2020 Jun 24.

Prevalence of iron deficiency anemia in Asian female population and human development index (HDI): an ecological study

Elham Goodarzi  1 , Reza Beiranvand  2 , Hasan Naemi  3 , Isan Darvishi  4 , Zaher Khazaei  5
Affiliations

Prevalence of iron deficiency anemia in Asian female population and human development index (HDI): an ecological study

Elham Goodarzi et al. Obstet Gynecol Sci. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

Objective: Anemia is a major problem in developing countries, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the human development index (HDI) and the prevalence of anemia among Asian women.

Methods: This was a descriptive-analytic ecological study. The study analyzed data including HDI and prevalence of anemia extracted from the World Bank. The correlation coefficient and analysis of variance were used for data analysis. The significance level was considered to be less than 0.05. Analyses were performed using Stata-14 software.

Results: The results revealed that the prevalence of anemia in women of reproductive age (R=-0.626, P<0.001), pregnant women (R=-0.576, P<0.001) and non-pregnant women (R=-0.623, P<0.0001) was significantly negatively correlated with HDI index. In the analysis of HDI components and the prevalence of anemia, a significant negative correlation was observed between the prevalence of anemia and the mean years of schooling, life expectancy at birth, and expected years of schooling indices in all 3 groups of women (non-pregnant, pregnant, and of reproductive age) (P<0.05).

Conclusion: Since there was a negative correlation between the prevalence of anemia in women and HDI, paying greater attention to factors which influence anemia may contribute to the prevention of anemia in developing countries.

Keywords: Anemia; Asia; Prevalence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Trend of anemia prevalence in 3 groups of women. (A) Non-pregnant woman, (B) pregnant woman, (C) woman reproductive age by region World Health Organization.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Correlationa) between the human development index (HDI) and prevalence of anemia in Asian women. (A) Women reproductive age, (B) pregnant woman, (C) non-pregnant woman in 2016. a)Statistical method used: correlation coefficient.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization . Iron deficiency anemia. Assessment, prevention, and control. A guide for programme managers. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2001.
    1. Saxena Y, Shrivastava A, Saxena V. Effect of gender on correlation of anaemia with body mass index in medical students. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol. 2011;55:364–9. - PubMed
    1. Seshadri S. Prevalence of micronutrient deficiency particularly of iron, zinc and folic acid in pregnant women in South East Asia. Br J Nutr. 2001;85(Suppl 2):S87–92. - PubMed
    1. Petry N, Olofin I, Hurrell RF, Boy E, Wirth JP, Moursi M, et al. The proportion of anemia associated with iron deficiency in low, medium, and high human development index countries: a systematic analysis of national surveys. Nutrients. 2016;8:693. - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization . Global health risks: mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2009.