Relationship between health services, socioeconomic variables and inadequate weight gain among Brazilian children

This ecological analysis assessed the relative contribution of behavioural, health services and socioeconomic variables to inadequate weight gain in i nfants (0-11 months) and children (12-23 months) in 140 municipalities in t he State of Ceara, north-east Brazil. To assess the total effect of selecte d variables, we fitted three unique sets of multivariate linear regression models to the prevalence of inadequate weight gain in infants and in childr en. The final predictive models included variables from the three sets. Fin dings showed that participation in growth monitoring and urbanization were inversely and significantly associated with the prevalence of inadequate we ight gain in infants, accounting for 38.3% of the variation. Female illiter acy rate, participation in growth monitoring and degree of urbanization wer e all positively associated with prevalence of inadequate weight gain in ch ildren. Together, these factors explained 25.6% of the variation. Our resul ts suggest that efforts to reduce the average municipality-specific female illiteracy rate, in combination with participation in growth monitoring, ma y be effective in reducing municipality-level prevalence of inadequate weig ht gain in infants and children in Ceara.