Prevalence of Anemia among Children and Adolescents of Bangladesh: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The prevalence of anemia is high among children and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries because of undernutrition resulting from their poor socioeconomic status and lack of knowledge on proper nutrition. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the prevalence of anemia among children and adolescents aged between 6 months and 19 years in Bangladesh. Databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar were searched to identify the studies that reported the prevalence of anemia among children and adolescents. A total of 24 studies, including the data of 14,062 cases, were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis of the time period between 1997 and 2019. The random-effects model was used to calculate the summary estimates. The protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021246960). The pooled prevalence of anemia, iron deficiency anemia (IDA), and non-severe and severe anemia were 46.8% [95% CI: 36.0-57.6], 13.6% [95% CI: 8.0-19.2], 56.4% [95% CI: 39.6-73.1] and 0.7% [95% CI: 0.1-1.4], respectively. Prevalence of anemia exhibited the highest among the children aged ≤2 years. Briefly, 91.67% of the studies were of high quality. No significant publication bias was found; however, two outlier studies were detected. The prevalence of anemia among children and adolescents was estimated as high in Bangladesh.