Municipal Malnutrition In Mexican Preschool Children Population And Coverage Of The Programa Nacional Mexico Sin Hambre

Objective. To estimate malnutrition prevalence of preschool children at the level of municipality in Mexico, describe prevalence heterogeneity and its relationship with the Programa Nacional Mexico Sin Hambre's coverage. Materials and methods. Using the 2012 Mexican National Survey of Health and Nutrition, municipal income inequality and marginality, we applied a generalized normal model to obtain municipal distributions of nutrition status indicators from which we estimated malnutrition prevalence. Results. Stunting prevalence ranged from 7.8% (95%CI: 5.9-8.9) to 64.2% (49.2-72.5), low weight prevalence ranged from 0.6% (0.005-1.7) to 22.2% (13.5-34.9) and overweight-obesity prevalence ranged from 2.6% (0.2-3.9) to 14.4% (11.9-27.7).A total of 275 out of 554 municipalities with stunting prevalence above 25% were covered by the Programa Nacional Mexico Sin Hambre. Conclusions. Municipal malnutrition prevalence estimation showed wide differences within Mexico; this knowledge could assist public policy.