Determination on Level of Iodized Salt Availability in Households and Related Factors



Iodine deficiency (ID) affects 1.88 billion people worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that 90% of households should consume at least 15 ppm (parts per million) of iodized salt (IS) to effectively manage iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) in a world population. The principal goal of this study was to assess the availability of IS and associated factors among households in the Afar region of Ethiopia.



At the community of Afar Region (AR), the cross-sectional study (CSS) was undertaken among 549 household members from December 01 to 30, 2017 G.C. A multi-stage stratified and systematic random sampling technique (SRST) was applied to select the study participants. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data among the study population, and salt samples were analysed using a Rapid test kit (RTK). The collected data was entered into Epi-info (EI) version 7 for cleaning and exported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.0 for further analysis completion. A Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) has been used to investigate the relationship between several parameters and the level of availability of IS with a considered statistically significant p-value of <0.05, and the study reported as per the Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE) checklist guidelines.



The study found that 38.1% [95 % CI: 33.9 – 42.3] of households had access to IS. However, the salt type usage [AOR=1.86, 95% CI: 1.075, 3.241], container used type [AOR=4.42, 95% CI: 2.53, 7.73], storage place [AOR=2.03, 95% CI: 1.271, 3.273) and storage duration [AOR=1.66, 95% CI: 1.003, 2.760] of factors were statistically associated with the level availability of IS at household.



The research region has a poor availability of appropriate IS at the household level. The type of salt used, type of container used for storage, place of storage, and duration of storage were factors associated with the availability of IS. As a result, households should be educated about the need for IS and its safe management.
