Introduction. Nutritional status of children under the age of five years has been associated with their general health. People from Kihurio depend on intensive farming and tend to farm all year round. In December 2017, the department of health of the Northeast Tanzania SDA Conference (NETC), in collaboration with Salama health - a mission group conducted a participatory health assessment. The results found that women felt overworked with farm activities that could take away time for childcare. The extent of child undernutrition and its factors are not documented. Our objectives are to assess nutritional status and evaluate factors contributing to the state of nutrition of the children.

Methods. We conducted a cross sectional household survey on 210 children under the age of five years. We plan to evaluate anthropometric indicators of nutrition, namely underweight, wasting and stunting using Z scores calculated based on the NCHS: CDC: WHO reference populations. The Z scores will be classified as; Normal-2.0 Z-score or greater; Moderately malnourished - Between -3.0 and -2.0 Z-score; and severely malnourished - Z-score less than -3. Descriptive statistics and the relationship between nutritional status and possible factors will be explored using Logistic regression analysis.

Results: Analysis of data in this study is still underway since it is part of the student’s capstone research project. We plan to extend the grant to another year to complete the study.

Public health significance: Results of this study will enable the NETC, and other stakeholders to develop viable health programs for this community.