Application of ridit analysis to study the severity of anemia among children, adolescents and pregnant women in Andhra Pradesh

Ridit analysis is a simple and a suitable method for analyzing the ordinal data, where the natural ordering of the variable under study is very important. This paper presents the utility and usefulness of the ridit analysis of the graded severity of anemia among the children and pregnant women in the Andhra Pradesh state, India. Application of ridit analysis to study the severity of anemia among the vulnerable groups in the state is sparse. The present study aims at to assess the severity of anemia among the children and pregnant women in the state and also to compare the distribution of severity of anemia among different socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents using the ridit analysis. The highest prevalence of severe anemia (21.2 %) is observed among the children (6-59 months), whereas it was around 10 % in the adolescents and pregnant women in the state. From the ridit analysis, it is observed that the children and pregnant women in the rural areas of the state having a higher estimated probability of severe anemia as compared to the urban subjects. There is a lower chance of severe anemia among the children and pregnant women from the other castes as compared to the scheduled castes or tribes in the state.