Epidemiology and Public Health of Anemia in Women of Reproductive Age

Anemia among women aged 15–49 years remains a major global health challenge, affecting nearly one in three women worldwide. Characterised by insufficient haemoglobin concentration to meet physiological needs, anemia in this group contributes to elevated maternal mortality, adverse birth outcomes and reduced economic productivity. The distribution of burden is highly uneven, with the highest prevalence observed in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and persistent disparities according to socioeconomic status, education, rural residence and access to health services. Key aetiologies include dietary iron deficiency, haemoglobinopathies, infectious diseases (notably malaria and helminth infections) and chronic inflammatory conditions. Public health strategies have centred on iron and folic acid supplementation, fortification programmes, malaria control, family planning and broader women’s empowerment initiatives. Despite modest global declines in prevalence over the past three decades, progress remains insufficient to meet the World Health Organization target of halving anemia in women of reproductive age by 2030. Effective interventions demand locally tailored, multisectoral approaches that address nutritional, infectious and social determinants in concert, alongside strengthened surveillance systems to monitor trends and inequalities at subnational levels.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have refined our understanding of both the social implications and geographic patterns of anemia in women of reproductive age. An analysis of adolescent hemoglobin levels and school attendance in India employed within-household comparisons to control for unobserved household factors, revealing that once family-level confounders are accounted for, anemia per se has minimal effect on attendance. This finding challenges the assumption that lifting hemoglobin concentrations alone will boost educational outcomes, pointing instead to broader household determinants. A separate geospatial modelling effort mapped annual anemia prevalence and severity across 82 low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2018. By integrating Bayesian estimation and administrative boundary aggregation, this work identified stark within-country disparities and projected that only three nations are on course to meet WHO’s Global Nutrition Target by 2030. The resulting high-resolution maps offer precision public health tools for targeting resources to the most vulnerable populations and monitoring subnational progress toward global goals.

Epidemiology and Public Health of Anemia in Women of Reproductive Age publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in epidemiology and public health of anemia in women of reproductive age across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Haemoglobin concentration: The amount of haemoglobin protein in blood, measured in grams per decilitre, reflecting oxygen-carrying capacity.

Prevalence: The proportion of individuals in a population who have a specific condition at a given time.

Years lived with disability (YLD): A metric estimating the number of healthy years lost due to non-fatal health outcomes, weighted by disability severity.

Iron deficiency: A state in which body iron stores are insufficient to meet physiological requirements, often leading to anemia.

Severity categories: Classification of anemia as mild, moderate or severe according to haemoglobin thresholds, guiding clinical and public health prioritisation.

References

1. Prevalence, years lived with disability, and trends in anaemia burden by severity and cause, 1990–2021: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The Lancet Haematology (2023).
2. Relationship between adolescent anemia and school attendance observed during a nationally representative survey in India. Communications Medicine (2024).
3. Drivers of anemia reduction among women of reproductive age in Senegal: a country case study. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2024).
4. Anemia prevalence in women of reproductive age in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2018. Nature Medicine (2021).