Financial decision making power is associated with moderate to severe anemia: A prospective cohort study among pregnant women in rural South India.
Karl Krupp, Caitlyn D Placek, Meredith Wilcox and 4 others
PMID 29522982WHAT IT FOUND
Pregnant women in rural South India who shared household financial decision-making had higher odds of moderate to severe anemia than those with no say.
Most anemic women showed no physical signs on exam, so blood testing is needed to catch it.
Key findings
01Two-thirds of pregnant women had anemia at baseline, and nearly half of those with anemia showed no physical signs during the medical exam.
02Women who shared decision-making power over household expenditures with other members had greater odds of moderate/severe anemia compared to those where other household members held that power.
03Low household income and lack of health or life insurance were associated with greater odds of moderate/severe anemia.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study did not collect data on parasitic infestation or specific nutritional intake, so these common causes of anemia could not be accounted for. Risk factors and household dynamics were self-reported, which may have led to misclassification. The sample was non-random and drawn from women attending mobile clinics, so findings may not apply to all rural populations. Few women were sole decision-makers, preventing analysis of the interaction between education and decision-making power.
Declared interests
The study was part of a larger project examining mobile medical clinics. The text does not explicitly state funding sources or specific conflicts of interest for the authors of this analysis, though it references a protocol by Kojima et al.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that women with more financial power are healthier. In this study, sharing decision-making power was associated with higher odds of anemia compared to having no say, possibly because those with some control are still not the primary purchasers of food, or due to other unmeasured socioeconomic factors. Also, do not rely on physical exam to rule out anemia; nearly half of the anemic women had no signs.