Epidemiology of under-nutrition in Irular tribal pre-school children in Chengam, Tamilnadu, India

Background: under-nutrition among the children under the age of five renders them vulnerable to recurrent infections, growth retardation, low efficiency in future and even death. under-nutrition as a global health problem is indeed of serious concern in tribal community which is a vulnerable sector. various studies have highlighted the burden of under-nutritionnation-wide among different tribal groups in india. this study is aimed to explore the malnutrition among irular tribal children in tamilnadu, india. methods: a community based cross-sectional survey was designed among the 450 tribal mothers and children in chengam, tamilnadu, india during january to december 2021. mothers were interviewed with semi-structured tamil questionnaire with socio-demographic details, nutrition, health-seeking behavior, clinical and anthropometric examination of children. under-nutrition was defined - weight for age (z-score) < 2 sd. median for age and sex-who standards. data was entered in spss. chi square and logistic regression were used for analysis. a p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. results: prevalence of under-weight was 44%, stunting-28.4%, wasting-37.8% and severe acute malnutrition-8.7%. majority were females. overall, the nutritional status was poor.advancing age, sex, maternal illiteracy, lack of awareness on nutrition, food insecurity and under-utilization of health services were the major underlying determinants. conclusion: the burden of under-nutrition is indeed a serious concern in the preschool children in irular tribes in tamilnadu, india wherein the socio-cultural, nutritional determinants and health seeking behavior have to addressed at the level of primary health care to combat malnutrition and prevent morbidities as well as mortality.