Background: Burkina Faso is said to have the highest prevalence of childhood anemia in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2021, approximately seven out of ten children aged 6–59 months (72%) suffered from anemia, with 29% in the mild form, 40% in the moderate form, and 2% in the severe form. Knowing the administrative units at extremely fine levels most affected by this health challenge will optimize intervention strategies. This study therefore aims to analyze geographic inequalities in the prevalence of anemia across the country's 45 provinces and 342 municipalities.
Methods: Two main data sources are used in this study: the 2021 Demographic and Health Survey (EDS) and the 2019 General Population and Housing Census (RGPH 2019). The analysis focused on 5,723 children aged 6 to 59 months from the DHS and 293,715 children aged less than 6 to 59 months from the census. The Elbers Langjouw and Langjouw (ELL) approach is used to estimate the prevalence of anemia. The geospatial inequality analysis is based on the Moran index to identify autocorrelation between entities and the LISA method to detect clusters of municipalities and provinces.
Results: Out of 342 municipalities, 89 have a prevalence greater than 80% and 160 a prevalence higher than the national average (72.8, 95% CI: 68.6 - 77.0). These municipalities are mainly from the Sahel region, which is also the least rained region in the country. Following these municipalities, come municipalities from the East, Center-East and North regions. The prevalence of anemia varies from a minimum of 60.7% for the commune of Ouagadougou (95% CI 56.1 – 65.3) to a maximum of 84.2% (95% CI 79.6 – 88.9) for the communes of Markoye and Diguel.
Conclusion and contributions: This study helps improve targeting actions for programs to combat malnutrition in Burkina Faso by highlighting the communes that need the most support. However, the majority of communes remain at a critical prevalence level.