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Table 3 Characteristics of non-pregnant women of childbearing age by site and body mass index (BMI)a

From: Anthropometric indices for non-pregnant women of childbearing age differ widely among four low-middle income populations

 

Equateur Province, DRC

Chimaltenango, Guatemala

N Karnataka, India

Thatta, Pakistan

Characteristic

UW (n = 264)

NW (n = 1378)

OW (n = 99)

p-value*

UW (n = 21)

NW (n = 838)

OW (n = 836)

p-value*

UW (n = 677)

NW (n = 968)

OW (n = 178)

p-value*

UW (n = 704)

NW (n = 1182)

OW (n = 122)

p-value*

Maternal age categories, n (%)

 15–18 y

44 (16.7)

342 (24.8)

12 (12.1)

0.0026

3 (14.3)

91 (10.9)

42 (5.0)

<0.0001

121 (17.9)

134 (13.8)

21 (11.8)

<0.0001

121 (17.2)

145 (12.3)

8 (6.6)

<0.0001

 19–24 y

112 (42.4)

556 (40.3)

43 (43.4)

13 (61.9)

402 (48.0)

296 (35.4)

438 (64.7)

579 (59.8)

84 (47.2)

307 (43.6)

450 (38.1)

34 (27.9)

 25–37 y

108 (40.9)

480 (34.8)

44 (44.4)

5 (23.8)

345 (41.2)

498 (59.6)

118 (17.4)

255 (26.3)

73 (41.0)

276 (39.2)

587 (49.7)

80 (65.6)

Parity categories, n (%)

 0

64 (24.2)

420 (30.5)

29 (29.3)

0.33

2 (9.5)

65 (7.8)

68 (8.1)

0.84

240 (35.5)

306 (31.6)

56 (31.5)

0.0069

274 (38.9)

444 (37.6)

40 (32.8)

0.10

 1–2

123 (46.6)

603 (43.8)

46 (46.5)

12 (57.1)

539 (64.3)

517 (61.8)

414 (61.2)

589 (60.8)

113 (63.5)

246 (34.9)

368 (31.1)

41 (33.6)

 ≥ 3

77 (29.2)

355 (25.8)

24 (24.2)

7 (33.3)

234 (27.9)

251 (30.0)

23 (3.4)

73 (7.5)

9 (5.1)

184 (26.1)

370 (31.3)

41 (33.6)

Maternal education categorized, n (%)

 No formal schooling

68 (25.8)

288 (20.9)

15 (15.2)

0.0001

1 (4.8)

70 (8.4)

66 (7.9)

0.65

49 (7.2)

82 (8.5)

8 (4.5)

0.29

589 (83.7)

975 (82.5)

75 (61.5)

<0.0001

 Primary

153 (58.0)

802 (58.2)

46 (46.5)

12 (57.1)

567 (67.7)

569 (68.1)

101 (14.9)

151 (15.6)

23 (12.9)

77 (10.9)

134 (11.4)

24 (19.7)

 Secondary +

43 (16.3)

288 (20.9)

38 (38.4)

8 (38.1)

201 (24.0)

201 (24.0)

527 (77.8)

735 (75.9)

147 (82.6)

38 (5.4)

73 (6.2)

23 (18.9)

Tally of indicators of higher SESb

 0 indicators present

162 (61.4)

690 (50.1)

32 (32.3)

<0.0001

0 (0.0)

2 (0.2)

0 (0.0)

0.0008

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

<0.0001

23 (3.3)

32 (2.7)

1 (0.8)

<0.0001

 1–2 present

99 (37.5)

668 (48.5)

62 (62.6)

4 (19.0)

118 (14.1)

70 (8.4)

83 (12.3)

91 (9.4)

10 (5.6)

350 (49.7)

516 (43.6)

27 (22.1)

 3–4 present

3 (1.1)

20 (1.5)

5 (5.1)

14 (66.7)

478 (57.0)

473 (56.6)

458 (67.7)

623 (64.4)

96 (53.9)

238 (33.8)

434 (36.7)

49 (40.2)

 5–6 present

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

0 (0.0)

3 (14.3)

240 (28.6)

293 (35.0)

136 (20.1)

254 (26.2)

72 (40.4)

93 (13.2)

200 (16.9)

45 (36.9)

  1. a Underweight (UW) defined as BMI <18.5; Normal weight (NW) as 18.5 – <25.0; Overweight/Obesity (OW) as ≥25.0
  2. b In order to compare socio-economic status (SES) across sites, we looked at commonly reported indicators of SES, namely 1) electricity, 2) improved water source, 3) sanitation, 4) man-made flooring, 5) improved cooking fuels, and 6) household assets. Improved water source includes faucet inside house, public tap, other pipe source, public well, mechanical pump well, bore well within home, protected water source; improved cooking fuel includes electricity, LPG, natural gas, kerosene, or coal; assets include: radio, TV, telephone, bike, motorcycle/motor scooter, or refrigerator, or household owns a car or truck. We tallied these six indicators and reported the proportion of families without any, with 1–2 indicators, with 3–4 indicators, and 5–6 of these indicators present
  3. * P-values from chi-square tests to assess for associations between BMI and characteristic of interest