Iron deficiency and anemia among adolescent girls in Banten, Indonesia: a cross -sectional study

Anemia is diagnosed when the hemoglobin level is below the World Health Organization’s (WHO) normal value based on age and gender. Adequate hemoglobin can be synthesized if the iron supply is sufficient. Studying iron status (hemoglobin and ferritin), thus, in adolescent girls, the next age group that will possibly experience pregnancy, is necessary to be performed. A cross-sectional study was performed in Banten, Indonesia. A total of one hundred fifty-eight girls were recruited and joined the study. Blood was drawn, and iron status (ferritin and hemoglobin) was analyzed. In addition, respondents’ characteristic was obtained through direct interviews. Weight and height were determined to calculate the Z-scores of BMI-for-age using WHO AnthroPlus software. A total of one hundred fifty-two respondents were analyzed, excluding 6 respondents due to an infection condition, resulting in an average age of 16.04±1.00 years old and an average z-score BMI-for-age of -0.32. The study revealed that anemia prevalence was 44.7%, 55.4% of whom had iron deficiency. Another result showed that the prevalence of iron deficiency was 36.8% among all respondents. In addition, chisquare analysis showed a relationship between anemia and iron deficiency status with an OR ratio of 4.083 (2.029-8.217, p = 0.000). Correlation analysis unveiled that a medium coefficient between hemoglobin and ferritin levels was observed (r = 0.497, p = 0.000). Iron deficiency in adolescent girls enhances the risk of progressing anemia. Thus, increasing iron consumption through food and supplementation might tackle iron deficiency and anemia.