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DATA150_FALL_2021

Annotated Bibliography: Data science and Its Assessment on Malnutrition in Ethiopia.

Introduction:

Making people the focal point of human development requires that we focus on democratic principles and individual rights because it’s these ideas and the principles surrounding them that put the human beings at the center. Amartya Sen captures these ideas perfectly in his book discussing development as freedom. In it, he explains how development is seen as the process of expanding real freedoms for people to enjoy, including economic freedom (ability to exchange goods in the market), social freedom (ability to pursue education and health care), and political freedom (broad political participation). Furthermore, he goes on to explain that when an institutional boundary deprives them of these basic, God-given freedoms, people no longer can make basic yet influential choices that will help them meet the sole end of individual human development- a satisfactory and enjoyable life. To that end, I believe that a major yet under-looked factor that is necessary for people to attain these freedoms are basic necessities. Without food and water to survive, people can’t strive for that these freedoms, preventing human development. Therefore, I have decided to focus my research on data science and its assessment on the malnutrition in Ethiopia.

Definition of Malnutrition and Analysis of the Complexity of its Nature:

Under or Malnutrition is the health consequences associated with not takin in enough food energy and nutrition, resulting in hunger. It is not quality a person is born with but rather a by product from the interactions of poor-quality diets, healthcare, environment, and poor behavior. According to UNICEF and WHO, it contributes to the deaths of 3 million children a year, while continuously threatening the lives of millions each year. Being a developing country, malnutrition rates in Ethiopia are quite high , especially in those under the age of five; this is detrimental to the overall development of country, as survivors of malnutrition enter the world with social and mental disadvantages (suspectable to diseases, lack of cognitive development etc..). The most consistent predictors associated with malnutrition in Ethiopia include low educational status of father and mother, poor household, low birth weight, mothers ages (under 20), unimproved sources of drinking water, absence of toilet facilities, infection, and lack of sufficient health care and many others. Consequently, instead of being a standalone issue, malnutrition is in fact interconnected to other problems plaguing our society. Thus, there is no one size fit all solution that policy makers or healthcare companies can directly apply to lessen its prevalence, but rather companies are to address the factors (stated above) that are responsible for malnutrition.

Kasaye HK, Bobo FT, Yilma MT, Woldie M (2019) Poor nutrition for under-five children from poor households in Ethiopia: Evidence from 2016 Demographic and Health Survey. PLoS ONE 14(12): e0225996. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225996

In this article, the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia investigates the magnitude of malnutrition in Ethiopian children under the age of five. Using a 2016 height and weight EDH (Ethiopian Demographic and Health) survey of 9494 child and mother pairings (51.3% male, 48.7% female, 21.4% under 12 months), the agency measures the nutritional status of Ethiopian children based on certain undernutrition indicators that abide by the WHO child growth standard. The measurable indicators used include stunting (child who is too short for his/her age), wasting (acute malnutrition and rapid weight loss that makes it disproportionate to height), and underweight (child who is low in weight for his/her age). WHO Stunting, wasting, and underweight standards serve as the dimensions of human development for this study, as the surveyed height and weight data is being compared to these standards. To make the comparative analysis, the agency uses multilevel logistic linear regression adjusted for clusters and sampling weights to identify factors associated with the standards. The results show that the prevalence of stunting is 38.3%, underweight, 23.3%, and wasting 10;1%. Seven out of fifteen (46.5%) suffer from at least on form of malnutrition while 3.1% suffered from all three kinds. Additionally, Sex of the child (male), children older than 24 months, recent experience of diarrhea, household wealth index (poorest) exhibit a higher risk of undernutrition. On the other hand, children born from overweight mothers and educated mother (primary, secondary or higher) exhibit a lower risk of undernutrition. As shown by the data, a considerable portion of children still suffer from undernutrition, meaning action must be taken. In total, the purpose of this study is to provide policy makers and companies a detailed assessment of the major factors that are associated with malnutrition in young children, so that they can attack those issues directly and thus eliminate the issue as a whole. The earliest malnutrition can start is from conception. Thus, the quicker companies deal with this issue early on, the easier it will be for them to help create a flourishing society in the future This article relates to Amartya Sen’s human development because view inherent rights and freedoms as major building blocks towards human development. The authors see proper food nutrition from a young age as the means to a create a flourishing society that meets global goals. On the other hand, Sen sees economic, political, and social freedom as the means. As far as sustainable goals go, I believe the agency could partner with the healthcare companies and attempt to reduce each kind of malnutrition (stunt, waste, and underweight) by 5% each year by any mean. This could include implementing food drives and pantry systems, raising awareness, or teaching locals how to grow produce sustainably. By creating sustainable goals like these, companies will be able to more efficiently implement their solutions to help eliminate child malnutrition.

Neima Endris, Henok Asefa, Lamessa Dube, “Prevalence of Malnutrition and Associated Factors among Children in Rural Ethiopia”, BioMed Research International, vol. 2017, Article ID 6587853, 6 pages, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/6587853

Whereas the previous article assess the malnutrition of Ethiopia of small areas , this article focus specifically on the populations in the all rural regions of Ethiopia. Like the previous article, this one also investigates malnutrition in Ethiopian children under five. The authors claim that using conventional indicators of nutritional status (method of Article 1/most popular method for these types of study), provides only categorization of children into the general categories of malnutrition and the prevalence of malnutrition due to the potential overlap of children into multiple categories of anthropometric failure (Exhibiting all three). In other words, the conventional indicator method, lacks an effective method to determine whether a person exhibits all three forms of undernutrition, since the method is only designed to put a person in one of the three. Therefore, this study uses robust alternative indicator the composite index of anthropometric failure. Using a 2014 height and weight EDH survey of 3905 children within 8,475 rural households (50.1% female. 49.9% male, , the CSA of Ethiopia and its team categorizes children into seven groups: failure; wasting only; wasting and underweight; wasting, stunting, and underweight; stunting and underweight; stunting only; and underweight only. They specifically categorize them based on an analysis of the three forms of malnutrition put together. The dimensions of human development are also different. They associate stunt to HA (height to age), waste to WH (Weight to Height) and underweight to WA (weight to age) to help categorize data easily. The team also uses linear regression models, like those used in article 1, to help aid in the analysis process. The results show that the 48.5% were malnourished, 22.7% exhibited a single form of malnutrition, while 25.9% exhibited 2 or 3 forms. Additionally, results of multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that age of the child, preceding birth interval, region of residence, maternal education, and economic status of the household were factors independently associated with nutritional status of children. In total, the purpose of this study is to provide policy makers and companies a detailed assessment of the major factors that are associated with all 3 forms of malnutrition together in young children, so that they can attack those issues directly and thus eliminate the issue as a whole. This article relates to Amartya Sen’s human development because view inherent rights and freedoms as major building blocks towards human development. The authors see proper food nutrition from a young age as the means to a create a flourishing society that meets global goals. On the other hand, Sen sees economic, political, and social freedom as the means. As far as sustainable goals go, I believe the agency could partner with the governments, the only institution with enough power to make change, and together attempt to eliminate all three kinds of malnutrition (stunt, waste, and underweight) by 2050 . This requires that the poor Ethiopian government must somehow gain the necessary funding to provide governmental aid on a wide margin. This can be easily done through diplomacy.

Alebel, A., Kibret, G.D., Petrucka, P. et al. Undernutrition among Ethiopian adults living with HIV: a meta-analysis. BMC Nutr 6, 10 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40795-020-00334-x

Human Immunodeficiency Virus is significant public health challenge prevalent developing countries, including Ethiopia. At the end of 2016, an estimated 34.5 million adults were lives HIV, and 1 million die due to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) related illnesses. Undernutrition is a common problem among peoples living with HIV, which creates a vicious cycle that may catalyze progression from HIV infection to AIDS. HIV weakens the immune system, resulting in malnutrition and increased risk of mortality. Thus, this article seeks to investigate the exact relationship between undernutrition and HIV patients. Rather than using actual survey data of some sort, the authors search for all prior studies that have already analyzed the HIV-positive Ethiopian adults and/or analyzed malnutrition in Ethiopian adults using an electronic search via various databases (PubMed, Google Scholar etc). The authors search for studies using key words such as “prevalence” OR “burden” AND “malnutrition” OR “undernutrition” OR “malnourishment” OR “underweight” AND “HIV-positive” OR “HIV-infected” AND “Adults” AND “Ethiopia”. After obtaining 418 studies of “data”, the authors use a standardized extraction software to extract data from each original study. Using an inclusion criterion (analysis of study location and content relevancy) , the authors condenses 418 into 15 studies is used in the meta-analysis. Each of 15 studies revealed the proportion of undernutrition among HIV-positive adults in a region of Ethiopia, culminating in a total population of 5642. From there, the authors use a forest plot and other statistical methods to reveal that the overall pooled proportion of undernutrition among HIV-positive cases, which happens to also be the dimension of human development for this article, is 26%. Essentially, this plot essentially complies all prior data on this topic into one cohesive dataset. The highest percentage of undernutrition (46.8%) is reported from Jimma University and the lowest, 12.3%, is reported from Dilla Hospital. The study comes to show that the amount of HIV positive adults experiencing undernutrition is substantial. In total, the purpose of this study is to assess the correlation between HIV and undernutrition, so that policy makers and relief companies are aware of severity of issue, allowing them to act accordingly. This article relates to Amartya Sen’s human development because the authors recognize the existence of unfreedoms, obstacles that impede human development. The authors see disease and malnutrition as unfreedom because they prevent a person from living a satisfied life that human development aspires toward. On the other hand, Sen sees economic poverty, social deprivation, tyranny as unfreedoms because they prevent a person from making a willful choice to improve their wellbeing. On sustainable goal that could be implemented is to attempt to reduce the amount of HIV cases by 10% each year. This can occur through sexual education and raising awareness on the negative effects of HIV. By doing so, society will be on the road to a flourished state.

Gebremedhin, T. K., Cherie, A., Tolera, B. D., Atinafu, B. T., & Demelew, T. M. (2021). Prevalence and risk factors of malnutrition among adult cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment in cancer center, Ethiopia: cross-sectional study. Heliyon, 7(6), e07362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07362

Malnutrition is a serious problem that causes high morbidity and mortality among cancer patients. Prior to this study, there was no sufficient empirical evidence on the prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors among adult cancer hospitalized patients in Ethiopia. Thus, this 2019 study investigates the prevalence and risk factors among Ethiopian adult cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in a cancer center. Using a the interview and chart reviews of 281 patients selected using sampling methods, the authors measured the prevalence of malnutrition of adult cancer patients. To determine this, the authors analyze the data using statistical method to calculate frequency, distribution, mean, median and standard deviation datasets. After analyzing all variables associated with the data sets, they determine that out of all participating patients, 58.2% have malnutrition (malnutrition in this case is the dimension of human development). Additionally, using logistic regression modeling, the authors also determine that risk factors associated with malnutrition is based upon the nutritional status of the patient, the type of cancer, and gender. For example, lung cancer patients have a higher chance of being malnourished as opposed to those who have breast cancer. In total, the purpose of this study is to assess the correlation between Malnutrition and cancer, so that policy makers and relief companies are aware of severity of issue, allowing them to act accordingly. Similar to the third article, this article relates to Amartya Sen’s human development because it recognizes the existence of unfreedoms, obstacles that impede human development. The authors see cancer and malnutrition as unfreedom because they prevent a person from living a satisfied life that human development aspires toward. On the other hand, Sen sees economic poverty, social deprivation, tyranny as unfreedoms because they prevent a person from making a willful choice to improve their wellbeing. On sustainable goal that could be implemented is to attempt to reduce the amount of cancer cases by 10% each year. This can occur by reminding people of the habits associated with a healthy lifestyle and warning them of the negative effects of cancer. By doing so, society will be on the road to a flourished state.