Utilization of geographic information system (GIS) in mapping the distribution of malnutrition among primary school children in Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia

• Main Authors: Mohd Abu Bakar, Wan Azdie, Yahya, Noor Atirah, Ab Ghalib, Halimatun Saadiah, Mat Ya, Roselawati, Abdul Rahman, Rozlin, Sidek, Suriati
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IIUM Press 2023
• Subjects: RA Public aspects of medicine; RM216 Diet Therapy. Clinical Nutrition
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/103133/2/103133_Utilization%20of%20geographic%20information%20system.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/103133/; https://journals.iium.edu.my/ijahs/index.php/IJAHS/article/download/738/685/4062

Objectives: This study aims to determine the nutritional status among primary school children in Kuantan, Pahang and to map its distribution using the Geographic Information System (GIS). Materials and Methods: This community based cross sectional study was conductedin Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. A stratified random sampling method was used to select 760 primary school children aged 7 to 11 years old from six subdivisions of Kuantan district. The socio-demographics characteristics and anthropometric measurements were collected from the participants. The participants’ home coordinates were obtained from the Google map based on their home address and the Geographical Information System (GIS) software was used to map and visualize the distribution of school children nutritional status. Results and Findings:Based on the three anthropometric measurements, it was found that 16.1% (n=122) of the school children were overweight, 12% (n=91) were obese, 6.1% (n=46) of them were moderately thin and 1.7% (n=13) were severely thin.There were 9.5 % (n=72) moderately stunted and 0.5% (n=4) severely stunted school children respectively. The result of mapping shows that there was a cluster pattern of obesity in some places in the urban area of Kuantan. Likewise, the distribution of stunting was seen to be overlapping with the overweight/obesity distribution. Conclusion: A high proportion of overweight and obesity among school children was identified in Kuantan and its distribution was mapped using GIS. The findings advocate the need for further investigation to identify the root cause of poor nutritional status in order to develop informed policy, guidelines and intervention program.