Anemia During Pregnancy in Peru in 2017: A Geographic Information System Study

In order to attain the sustainable development goal of no hunger (SDG 2) established by the United Nations general assembly, some undernourishment conditions need to be considerable reduced or eradicated. Anemia due to iron deficiency in pregnant women is one of these conditions. In this work, we have used public data from the National Institute of Health (INS) from Peru, in order to study the spatial distribution patterns of anemia in pregnant women across Peru at a district level for the year 2017. By using the ArcGIS software, a map (shapefile) containing all the districts of Peru from the database of global administrative areas was used to incorporate all the non-geocoded data from the INS. Two maps, one showing the prevalence of anemia accross Peru and the other one presenting the hot spots, cold spots and outliers, were generated. We discovered that in many of the districts in the regions of the highlands, gestational anemia is widespread and regarded as a severe health problem (prevalence $\geq \mathbf{40}\%$ ). Likewise in some districts of three regions of the jungle and two regions of the coast, this condition is also considered as severe. Our map produced using local Moran's I shows as well many hot spots in the central and southern regions of the highlands. An additional map presenting in detail the southern highlands shows also how there are many outliers (low-high) in these regions which are in danger of becoming hot spots in the future. Hence, it is recommended that the Ministry of Health from Peru, policy makers, along with health practitioners address promptly the prevalence of anemia in these hot spots with for example some programs that have already proven successful in decreasing gestational anemia in countries like Nicaragua and Thailand.