Household environment associated with anaemia among children aged 6–59 months in Ethiopia: a multilevel analysis of Ethiopia demographic and health survey (2005–2016)

Abstract Background Anaemia continues to be a major public health challenge globally, including in Ethiopia. Previous studies have suggested that improved household environmental conditions may reduce anaemia prevalence; however, population-level evidence of this link is lacking in low-income countries. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between environmental factors and childhood anaemia in Ethiopia. Methods In this study, we conducted an analysis of the data from the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS), a nationally representative population-based survey conducted in Ethiopia between 2005 and 2016. The study included a total of 21,918 children aged 6–59 months. Children were considered anemic if their hemoglobin (Hb) concentration was less than 11.0 g/dl. To examine the association between environmental factors and anemia, we used multilevel mixed-effect models. These models allowed us to control for various confounding factors including: child, maternal, household and community-level variables. The study findings have been reported as adjusted odds ratios (AORs) along with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) at a significance level of p