Prevalence of anemia in adolescent girls in rural areas of Pune district, India

Anemia is characterized by low level of hemoglobin in the blood. Hemoglobin is necessary for transporting oxygen from lungs to other tissues and body organs. Adolescents are vulnerable to iron deficiency anemia because of increased iron requirement related to rapid growth. In children and adolescents, anemia can result in impaired cognitive performance, behavioral and motor development, coordination, language development, scholastic achievement and increased morbidity from infections. Childbearing age follows adolescence in girls and anemia in later life is very much associated with multiple adverse outcomes in both mother and child that can result in maternal mortality, weakness, diminished physical and mental capacity, peri-natal mortality, premature deliveries and low birth weight and malnutrition. In India, surveys show that in adolescent girls, prevalence of any anemia is more than 55% and in Maharashtra 48% women (15-49 yrs of age) are anemic. We conducted a cross sectional study in 615 adolescent girls from predominantly agrarian families studying in grade 7 to 10 aged 13 to 18 years, in rural areas. We collected venous blood sample to estimate Hb levels. The participants were also introduced self-administered, structured questionnaire asking information about educational performance, diet, health status, personal hygiene etc. We will estimate the prevalence of anemia among the study group and will examine the association of anemia with various variables like educational performance, vegetarian and non-vegetarian diet, personal hygiene, diarrhea, etc from the data. Preliminary analysis shows that almost 90% of the girls have Hb below 10 g/dl (Hb levels 8.67 g/dl [8.30-9.04]).