Introduction: Anemia is a public health problem mainly affecting young children aged less than 5 years old globally. The aim of the present study was to assess the pooled prevalence of anemia and its determinants in “children aged 6-23 months” in Ethiopia. Methods: “EMBASE”, “Web of Science”, “Medline”, “Scopus”, “PubMed”, and “Google Scholar” electronic databases were utilized to search published articles on this topic. Results: The estimated pooled prevalence of anemia in “children aged 6-23 months” was 58.78% (95%CI: 52.13, 65.43). Subgroup analysis showed that the pooled prevalence of anemia was 54.63% (95%CI: 47.41,61.86) among regional-based studies, 68.15% (95%CI: 61.57, 74.73) among national-based studies, 58.25% (95%CI: 51.40,65.10) for articles published 2015-2019, 59.33% (95%CI: 48.71, 69.94) for articles published 2020-2021, 62.93% (95%CI: 54.00,71.86) for sample size 600, and 54.43% (95%CI: 48.03, 60.82) for sample size 600. Poor dietary diversity (AOR=2.81, 95%CI: 2.51, 3.11), having history of diarrhea over the last two weeks (AOR=3.97, 95%CI: 2.39, 5.56) and household food insecurity (AOR=2.72, 95%CI: 2.34, 3.10) were determinants of anemia. Conclusion: The pooled prevalence of anemia in “children aged 6-23 months” was high. Dietary diversity status, history of diarrhea over the last two weeks, and household food insecurity were determinants of anemia. Health education program should be provided.
Gebreyohannes et al. (Thu,) studied this question.