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Late Breaking/Rapid Science Poster Session 1

(LB02-23-24) Spatial-Temporal Trends of Breastfeeding Indicators in Jordan

Sunday, June 30, 2024
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM CT
Location: W185A-C - Poster Board 23
Disclosure(s):
Yanlin Ren, MS: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Robin Shrestha, MS and MBBS: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: Optimal breastfeeding could prevent 12% deaths (800,000 lives) in under-5 children living in low-middle-income countries every year. Subnational spatially explicit evidence on breastfeeding is instrumental in prioritizing interventions. However, such evidence is scant for Jordan. We investigate spatial-temporal trends of exclusive breastfeeding under 6 months and early initiation of breastfeeding in Jordan in the last two decades.

Methods: We analyzed all available—4 rounds of— cross-sectional geospatial and survey data of Jordan Population and Family Health Survey. For survey data, we used STATA 18 SE. Per DHS sampling cluster, we calculated early initiation of breastfeeding (EIBF) and exclusive breastfeeding under 6 months (EBF). We represented EIBF as a continuous variable and EBF as a binary variable (due to low number of children 0—5 month per cluster throughout 4 rounds).

For geospatial data, we used ArcGIS Pro 3.1.4. We obtained displaced point locations of DHS sampling clusters. The number of clusters varied from survey to survey (min: 498, max: 970). First, we projected all point location layers to Jordan JTM (transverse Mercator, meter) coordinate reference system. Then we did a table join of survey data with the data attribute table of the point location layer using DHS cluster as a join key. We conducted a hot spot analysis by calculating the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic. We used fixed distance band and Euclidean distance as key parameters for this analysis.

Results: For EBF, hot spot clusters were always located in Northern Jordan (Jerash, Mafraq governorates), except for 2012. For EIBF, there was not a distinct pattern throughout the last 20 years. Most recently, cold spot clusters were concentrated in Northern Jordan. Of note, the city of Amman had cold spot clusters for EBF for 2 rounds and EIBF for 3 rounds.

Conclusions: Northern Jordan is associated with hot spot clusters for EBF. The city of Amman and the district Un El-Basatien of Amman are associated with cold spot clusters for EBF. Breastfeeding interventions should prioritize these regions.

Funding Sources: USAID