Background: Eastern is one of the regions that have a higher prevalence rate of stunted children than other regions in Indonesia. The study aims to analyze the risk factors for stunted toddlers in Eastern Indonesia.
Methods: The study employed secondary data from the 2017 Indonesia Nutritional Status Monitoring. With the multi-stage cluster random sampling method, 24,103 toddlers in eastern Indonesia were sampled. Data were analyzed using a multinomial logistic regression test.
Results: The results of the study found that toddlers living in urban areas had a 0.798 times chance compared to toddlers living in rural areas to experience severe stunted (OR 0.798; 95% CI 0.719-0.885). A toddler with a married mother is 0.706 times more likely than a toddler with a divorced/widowed mother to experience severe stunted (OR 0.706; 95% CI 0.547-0.911). The results of this multivariate analysis indicate that the better the level of education of a mother, the less likely it is to have stunted and severely stunted toddlers. Meanwhile, the analysis also found that toddler's age is a determinant of stunted and severe stunted toddlers.
Conclusion: It concluded that 4 factors were found as risk factors for stunted toddlers in Eastern Indonesia. The four factors are living in rural areas, having a divorced/widowed mother, poor education, and a toddler's age.