A study on prevalence of anemia in school going Yanadi tribal children of Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh, India

Owing to the living condition, tribal community is at higher risk for diet-associated health disorders. The indigenous tribal populations like “The Yanadi”, residing in state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Being in the lower economic strata, they are deprived of proper food and access to basic health facilities is also constrained. Yanadi tribal children exhibit characteristic features of IDA, stunted growth, wasting and lower cognitive skills, which significantly affects their education. The study investigated the prevalence of anemia in 384 male Yanadi tribal schoolchildren aged 6-14 years and multiple approaches were adopted for survey-based data on social, economic and environment variables of the study-cohort was gathered along with anthropometric information. It was observed that huge majority of the tribal parents lacked primary school education and economic condition of such families is under dilapidating state, leading to consumption of improper food. Strikingly, 56% of the children exhibited the commonest symptom of anemia, pale conjunctiva. Overall analysis of the study participating children, following the WHO grading, close to 28% were found to be anemic and hemoglobin content (g/L) was observed to be close in both age groups, 11 to 14 years (11.889±1.123) and 7 to 10 years (11.734±1.309). Largely, the Yanadi tribal children projected cognitive impairment in the form of poor memory function (33%), down regulated cognitive functions (46%), and impaired attention functions (74.5%). It is somewhat relieving to see that anemia amongst Yanadi male children is not as severe as observed in children of other populations, as reported. However, the study projects out impaired cognitive and behavior skills amongst the participants, emphasizing the need of extending the study in a larger cohort.