Publication:

Prevalence of anaemia among college going students in India: a systematic review

Anaemia an important global health problem, which is categorized as one of the 10 most serious health problems by the World Health Organization. More than two billion people worldwide are estimated to have anaemia, with majority coming from the developing countries. Anaemia affects health of an individual varying from poor scholastic performance and cognitive impairment and even causes maternal mortalities. Percentage prevalence of anaemia among adolescent girls in the age group 15-19 years and in the older age group 20-29 years remains almost stagnant at 55.8% and 56.1% respectively. Young age period is formative years in life of an individual and crucial period for undertaking greater responsibilities including decision for study, to earn livelihood and healthy responsible parenthood. Protocol of study selection were prepared before the start of study and studies conducted in various states of India among college students and published between the year January 2000 to December 2021 were included. We searched Pubmed, Research gate, Google scholar for articles and 24 studies were included as per predesigned protocol. Analysis of reported studies shown high prevalence of anaemia among college students and more among female students. Subjects of most of the conducted studies were medical students. More studies should be conducted among Arts and Science college students. It is essential to conduct studies among college students to give not only awareness, but also warn them about health hazards and consequences affecting their day to day life.