Background: Anemia is one of the most widespread nutritional deficiency diseases and it affects all age groups and both sexes in most states of India. The aims and objectives of this study are to assess the prevalence of anemia among the Barwar community and find out any relationship between their sociodemographic factors with prevalence of anemia.

Materials and Methods: This was a population-based cross-sectional study conducted in a Denotified tribe (Barwar) of Gonda district, Uttar Pradesh among the age group from 20- 59 years. Total 315 samples were collected and participants were selected by simple random sampling. All statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 16.Digital hemoglobinometer was used to assess the Haemoglobin level and the World Health Organization recommended cutoff was used to diagnose and categorize anemia. The χ² test and Pearson correlation was used to test the degree of significance.

Results: Overall prevalence of anemia was found to be 72.1% (61.7% in males and 80.5% in females). Chi-square statistics shows significant association (p<0.05) of anemia is with monthly family income, marital status, sanitation facilities, Gender and socioeconomic status. However, education and age trends were not significantly associated with anaemia. There is a significant association was found in gender with all socio demographic variables and anemia, except sanitation. Pearson’s Correlation coefficient (r) between hemoglobin and all socioeconomic and demographic factors were statistically significant (p<0.05).

Conclusion: High prevalence of anemia among studied people indicates anemia to be a major public health problem in the Barwar community.

Keywords: Anemia, Denotified tribe, socioeconomic and demographic factors.

1. Yip R. Iron fortification: prevention of iron deficiency for developing countries. Paper presented at: Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting; June 20-24, 1988; Atlanta, GA.
2. van den Broek NR, Letsky EA. Etiology of anaemia in pregnancy in south Malawi. Am J Clin Nutr 2000;72:247S-256S.
3. International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and Macro International 2017. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015-16: Uttar Pradesh. Mumbai: IIPS.
4. World Health Organization. Iron Deficiency Anaemia: Assessment, Prevention and Control. A guide for programme managers. WHO: Geneva, 2001.
5. McLean E, Cogswell M, Egli I, Wojdyla D. de Benoist B. Worldwide prevalence of anaemia, WHO Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Information System, 1993-2005. Public Health Nutr 2009; 12: 444–454.
6. Gompakis N, Economou M, Tsantali C, Kouloulias V, Keramida M, Athanasiou-Metaxa M. The effect of dietary habits and socioeconomic status on the prevalence of iron deficiency in children of northern Greece. Acta Haematol 2007; 117: 200–204.
7. Sachan B, Idris MZ, Singh A. Effect of socio-demographic characteristics on the prevalence of anemia among school going adolescent girls in Lucknow district, India. South East Asia J Public Health 2013;2(1):8–12.
8. Rastogi S, Waseem S. M.A, Bano R. Study of anaemia amongst OPD patients visiting a private medical college in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Indian J Clin Anat Physiol 2018;5(4):546-552.
9. Kim JY, Shin S, Han K, Lee KC, Kim JH, Choi YS, Kim DH, Nam GE, Yeo HD, Lee HG and Ko BJ. Relationship between socioeconomic status and anaemia prevalence in adolescent girls based on the fourth and fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Eur J Clin Nutr 2014; 68(2):253-8. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2013.241.
10. Dey S, Goswami S and Goswami M. Prevalence of anaemia in women of reproductive age in Meghalaya: Alogistic regression analysis. Turk J Med Sci 2010;40(5):783-789.
11. Pratima V, Shraddha S, Ashutosh K, Archna G and Ahilesh K. Prevalence of Anaemia in adults with respectto Socio-Demographic status, Blood groups and religionin North Indian population. Int J Biol Med Res2012;3(4):2441-2447.
12. World Health Organization. Hemoglobin concentrations for the diagnosis of Anaemia and assessment of severity. Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Information System. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2011 (WHO/NMH/NHD/MNM/11.1)http://www.who.int/vmnis/indicators/haemoglobin.pdf.
13. Singh T, Sharma S, Nagesh S. Socio-economic status scales updated for 2017. Int J Res Med Sci 2017;5:3264-7.
14. Census of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Controller of Publication, New Delhi. 2011.
15. Pathak P, Kapil U, Kapoor SK, Saxena R, Kumar A, Gupta N, et al. Prevalence of multiple micronutrient deficiencies amongst pregnant women in a rural area of Haryana. Indian J Pediatr 2004;71(11):1007-14.
16. Basu S, Basu S, Hazarika R, Parmar V. Prevalence of anemia among school going adolescents of Chandigarh. Indian Pediatr 2005;42(6):593-7.
17. Rawat CM, Garg SK, Singh JV, Bhatnagar M. Socio-demographic correlates of anaemia among adolescent girls in rural areas of the district Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. Indian J Community Med 2001;26(4):173-5.
18. Kapoor G, Aneja S. Nutritional disorders in adolescent girls. Indian Pediatr 1992;29 (8):969-73.
19. Arya AK, Lal P, Kumar N, Barman S. Prevalence of anemia among adolescent girls in an urban slum of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Int J Med Sci Public Health 2017;6(9):1378-1381.
20. Yadavar S. Anaemia Is the Biggest Cause of Disability In India, Worst In BRICS. 2016. https://www.health-check.in/anaemia-is-the-biggest-cause-of-disability-in-india-worst-in-brics-43371/
21. Singh BP, Maheshwari S and Gupta PK. Anaemia in Married Females of Uttar Pradesh and Its relation to Body Mass Index: Application of Poisson Regression. Journal of Data Sciences2017;15:267-274.
22. Maiti S, Ali KM, Ghosh A, Ghosh K, Ghosh D and PaulS. Prevalence of Anaemia among Rural Women Population of Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India. Nepal Journal of Medical Sciences2013;2(1):9-12.
23. Malhotra P, Kumari S, Kumar R and Varma S.Prevalence of anaemia in adult rural population of north India. J Assoc Physicians India 2004;52:18-20.
24. de Benoist B, McLean E, Egli I, Well MC, editors. Worldwide prevalence of anemia 1993-2005, WHO global database on anemia. Geneva: WHO; 2008; 1-40.
25. International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and Macro International 2017. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015-16: India. Mumbai: IIPS.

Biswajit Mahapatra

Anthropological Survey of India, Head Office, 27, Jawaharlal Nehru Road, Kolkata-700016, West Bengal, India