ArticleInternational journal for equity in health2025
Trends and inequalities in stunting and underweight among children aged 0-59 months in Ghana, 1993-2022.
Article in International journal for equity in health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prenatal and postnatal household air pollution and longitudinal growth trajectories: results from long-term follow up of the GRAPHS cohort.Environment international · 2026Article
- Article
- A multivariate decomposition analysis of drivers of overweight and obesity among Ghanaian women.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Tracking the nutrition transition in Tanzania, Ghana, South Africa, and Malaysia: analysis of per capita supply of energy, protein, and fat from 1982 to 2022.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundStunting and underweight remain significant public health issues in many low- and middle-income countries, including Ghana. This study examined the trends and inequalities in stunting and underweight among children aged 0–59 months in Ghana between 1993 and 2022.
methodsWe utilised data from the Ghana Demographic Health Survey rounds conducted between 1993 and 2022, among mothers of children aged 0–59 months. The World Health Organisation Health Equity Assessment Toolkit software was used to calculate various inequality measures, including Difference (D), Ratio (R), Population Attributable Risk (PAR), and Population Attributable Fraction (PAR). An inequality assessment was conducted for six stratifiers: child’s age, maternal economic status, maternal level of education, place of residence, sex of the child, and sub-national region.
resultsStunting and underweight prevalence among children aged 0–59 months in Ghana both declined between 1993 and 2022, with stunting decreasing from 32.7 to 17.3% and underweight decreasing from 24.5 to 11.9%. Regarding children’s age, between 1998 and 2022, the difference in stunting prevalence between older children and younger children decreased from -29.5 to -0.9 percentage points, and underweight rates from -10.0 to -2.6 percentage points, indicating reduction in inequality. Economically, the disparity in stunting between children of the richest and poorest mothers declined from 27.2 to 15.3 percentage points, and underweight from 19.6 to 8.3 percentage points by 2022, highlighting reduction in inequality. With educational level, the stunting gap between children of mothers with high and low education reduced from 24.7 in 1993 to 10.5 percentage points in 2022, while underweight decreased from 23.3 to 5.6 percentage points between the same period, suggesting a reduction of inequality in stunting and underweight between of higher educated mothers and those of mothers with no formal education. Regarding place of residence, the difference between children from urban areas and those from rural areas decreased from 15.3 percentage points in 1993 to 4.5 percentage points for stunting in 2022, and from 11.8 percentage points in 1993 to 2.2 percentage points for underweight in 2022, indicating reduction in inequality. Finally, the subnational region difference was 19.1 percentage points for stunting in 2022, and 12.0 percentage points for underweight in 2022, revealing reduced regional disparities in both stunting and underweight rates among regions.
conclusionOur findings on stunting and underweight prevalence among children aged 0–59 months in Ghana from 1993 to 2022 underscore notable progress and persistent inequalities. The inequalities observed across dimensions such as economic status, maternal education, and geographic region indicate the multifaceted nature of stunting and underweight. This situation calls for a continued concerted effort by Government and partner organisations in Ghana to address the underlying socioeconomic determinants of stunting and underweight, aligning with global commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.