| dc.description.abstract | Malnutrition is one of the most rampant health problems throughout the world especially in developing countries. It has drastic and undesirable effects on the mental and physical health of children.
Food security also remains a big challenge in refuge settlements. I assessed food security status and the associated factors, as well as the food insecurity coping strategies among refugee households. The aim of this study was to access the factors affecting household nutrition and food security among children below 5 years in rhino camp refuge settlement
This cross sectional and descriptive analytical study was conducted on both south Sudanese and Congolese children below 5 years of age in rhino camp refuge settlement in Arua district.
Data was collected using structured questionnaire, anthropometric assessments, focus group discussions and face to face interviews with key informants. The nutritional status of the children was determined using the indices underweight, wasting and stunting. The obtained data was analysed using ENA for SMART, NutriSurvey and SPSS.
Out of the 187 children who took part in the study, 60% were males while 40% were females with 56% of the children being aged between 0 to 24 months and 44% aged between 25 to 59 months.
Basing on weight-for-age index, 74.0% of the children were normal while 26.0% were underweight were underweight. According to the wasting criteria, 51.3% were normal while 32.7% were wasted. The educational background of the members, age of introduction of complementary foods and length of breastfeeding all had a positive and significant relationship with wasting and underweight. Based on height-for-age, 90% of the refugee children were normal and 10% stunted. Children who consumed fewer meals were more likely to be undernourished. The study also indicated that socio-demographic factors such as age of the parents especially mothers and the number of people in the households all had significant effects in the nutrition status of the refugee children.
Meanwhile 82.4% of the refugee households were food insecure and more than half 50.7% were severely food insecure. The factors significantly associated with food security included, geographical location of the households, age of household head, and education level of the household head, household monthly incomes and tribe. The key informants added that multiplicity of refuge households and market accessibility interact refugee food security systems. The key coping strategies adopted with food insecurity included; reduction on the quantity of food cooked, reduction on the number of meals per day, and sale of domestic assets to buy food | en_US |
