Abstract:
Background: Childhood underweight is a critical public health problem that needs urgent
attention in developing countries, like Ethiopia. Despite its variation between localities, the
determinant factors and its geospatial variation were not addressed enough across the various
regions of the country. Therefore, the current study was conducted to investigate the spatial
variation and determinant factors of underweight among under-five children in Ethiopia.
Methods: The total weighted samples of 5753 under-five children were included in this study.
The data were taken from 2019 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS 2019). Arc
GIS software was used to analyze geospatial variations to identify the hot and cold spot areas of
underweight in Ethiopia. A multilevel multivariable logistic regression model was used to
identify the determinant factors of underweight. Excel, STATA-16, and ArcGIS, soft-wares were
used for the data management and analysis. In the multivariable multilevel analysis, Adjusted
Odds Ratio with 95% CI was used to declare significant determinants of underweight among
under-five children.
Result: Among 5753 under-five children, 21.3% of them were underweight in Ethiopia during
the 2019 EDHS. The distribution showed that there was a geospatial variation of underweightamong under-five children in Ethiop
