Factores socioeconómicos asociados al retraso en talla en niños y niñas migrantes menores de 5 años beneficiarios de la ONG acción contra el hambre, Norte de Santander (Colombia).

Abstract

The recent migratory phenomenon in Venezuela has brought with it a series of devastating consequences for both countries: unemployment, food and nutritional insecurity, lack of medicines, economic crisis, inefficient medical services, difficult access to the education sector, among many other causes for which they migrate Venezuelans to other countries, but emigrating is not a guarantee of quality of life. On many occasions they are forced to ask for food on the street, or seek donations from public or private organizations, or through informal and low-paid employment. These migratory effects accentuate the modification of eating habits, affecting the nutritional status of children and adolescents, in whom malnutrition occurs due to deficit or excess. Delayed height or chronic malnutrition is an indicator of nutritional status that is closely related to the progress of a country. Chronic malnutrition has consequences for the physical development of the child, as well as for its cognitive development. Malnutrition prevents children from learning normally, which puts their future at serious risk, condemning them to continue living in ignorance and poverty. This study is of a descriptive observational type with a retrospective cohort, where the target population is five-year-old migrant boys and girls, assessed by the Non Governmental Organization (NGO) Action Against Hunger in the department of Norte de Santander, Colombia. Exclusion factors were taken into account during the study: boys and girls without underlying pathology, assessed between the first semester of 2019 and the second semester of 2020, which generates a sample of 805 beneficiaries, of which 52.4% They are girls and the remaining 47.6% are boys. According to the height-for-age distribution, the diagnosis with the highest prevalence is the risk of short stature with 38.6% in the population, the delay in height was recorded in 31.9%. It is noteworthy that various authors refer to stunting as an indicator for measuring equity in a country. In addition, it was identified that the households with the highest rates of poverty are those with the greatest delay in height, a fact that, according to studies of the prevalence of short stature in Colombia, is present in 10.8% of the population.