Factors associated with early pregnancy anemia in rural Sri Lanka: Does being 'under care' iron out socioeconomic disparities?

• Published in: PloS one 2022-10, Vol.17 (10), p.e0274642
• Main Authors: Gayani Shashikala Amarasinghe, Thilini Chanchala Agampodi, Vasana Mendis, Suneth Buddhika Agampodi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274642

Globally, more than a third of pregnant women are anemic, and progress in its prevention and control is slow. Sri Lanka is a lower-middle-income country with a unique public health infrastructure that provides multiple interventions across the lifecycle for anemia prevention, despite which anemia in pregnancy remains a challenge. Studying the factors associated with maternal anemia in this context would provide unique information on challenges and opportunities encountered as low-and-middle-income countries attempt to control anemia by improving health care coverage. All first-trimester pregnant women registered for antenatal care in the Anuradhapura district between July 2019 to September 2019 were invited to participate in the baseline of a cohort study. Interviewer-administered and self-completed questionnaires were used. Anemia was defined using a full blood count. A hierarchical logistic regression model was built to identify factors associated with anemia. Out of 3127 participants, 451 (14.4%) were anemic. According to the regression model (Chi-square = 139.3, p