Distribution of Hemoglobin Concentration among the School Students of Rural Area of Kaski District, Nepal

Abstract

Hemoglobin is an oxygen carrying tetrameric hemeprotein found in erythrocytes where, it is responsible for binding oxygen in the lung and transporting the bound oxygen throughout the body. Its deficiency in our body causes decrease supply of oxygen that leads to various severe complications even up to death. Low Hb concentration is the common problem in the school students in developing countries. This study therefore sought to evaluate the frequency distribution of hemoglobin concentration in growing stage of people. The community-based study was carried out on hemoglobin concentration representing a random population sample from rural areas of Kaski District, Nepal. The objective was to determine the frequency distribution of hemoglobin concentration in the region, which would not only help in finding of anemic region of Nepal by health planner but also provide a way to eliminate the anemic risk. A cross sectional, analytical study  was carried out at Pokhara University, Lekhnath-12 Kaski, Nepal and encompassed 359 subjects, in which 47.6% were male and 52.4% female. Their hemoglobin concentration was measured to study the distribution of Hb concentration by age, sex and ethnicity. Results shows that hemoglobin concentration was found to be greater than 12 gm/dl in 85.8 percent students and only 14.2% students had low Hb concentration than 12 gm/dl.  3.3% of total Brahmin students were found to be anemic. Only 1.1% Dalit were found to be anemic in comparison to whole population of Dalit students attended in our research. 5.6% Janjati, 0.8% Newar and 3.3% Chhetri students were found to be anemic. The studied population exhibited a predominance of Janjati students as having low hemoglobin concentration (anemic) in order of Chhetri> Brahmin> Dalit> Newar. 14.2% of school students were anemic.