Anaemia in Relation to Body Mass Index (BMI) and Socio-Demographic Characteristics in Adult Nigerians in Ebonyi State.

Introduction: Anaemia, a multifactorial health challenge has been found to affect every stage of human development with negative health impacts. Providing information on the factors associated with Anaemia will help in formulating mitigating strategies against this important public health problem.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of Anaemia and its relationship with body mass index (BMI) and sociodemographic characteristics in adult Nigerians in Ebonyi State, South-eastern Nigeria.

Materials And Methods: Adults (n=428) aged ≥ 18 y (mean=38.4±13.7 y) randomly selected from 130 political wards from the 13 Local Government Areas of the state were studied. Sociodemographic data was collected with questionnaire while blood samples were collected for hemoglobin determination using colorimetric cyanmethemoglobin method. Data was analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS(®) for Windows(®) ver. 16).

Results: In general, 21.7% of the subjects were anemic with Anaemia prevalence of 9.9%, 15.8% and 39.8% in male, non-pregnant and pregnant female, respectively. About four percent (3.7%) of the subjects were underweight, while 37.6% had excess weight with hemoglobin concentration having no relationship with BMI and sociodemographic parameters.

Conclusion: It may be conclude that the Anaemia in adult Nigerians in Ebonyi State has no definite relationship with BMI and sociodemographic characteristics studied. Further studies are needed to document other factors that may be associated with Anaemia among adults in the State.