Bio:

Taddese Alemu earned his bachelor and masters degree in Public Health with a specialty in Reproductive Health from Alemaya and Jimma Universities in Ethiopia, respectively. His PhD is from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, where he studied Human Nutrition and Food sciences. He has served as a clinician, health services manager, lecturer and consultant in Ethiopia. His academic interests focus on maternal and child health programs, particularly the effect of maternal and child nutrition on early and later stages of life.

Project summary:

Nutritional anemia affects roughly two billion people worldwide, and children, women of reproductive-age, pregnant, and lactating women are the most affected. Although Iron-folic acid (IFA) supplementation during pregnancy is recommended by WHO, affordability, acceptability and compliance in resource-limited settings remain a critical challenge in Ethiopia. The primary aim of this study is to develop a prediction model for maternal anemia and the associated adverse perinatal outcomes using data on dietary, supplement, reproductive and other relevant factors. The secondary aim is to identify dietary diversity score cut-off values predicting reduced risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes in a rural resource limited setting of Ethiopia. Given that pre-pregnancy nutrition is critical, and that factors like crop-production and livestock-density can influence the risk of malaria and anemia, an additional field work addressing these issues will be conducted among women of reproductive age to investigate the effect of maize- and non-maize production systems on dietary patterns, risk of malaria and anemia in women of reproductive age.