Research Article Anaemia among Female Undergraduates Residing in the Hostels of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka Gayashan Chathuranga, 1 Thushara Balasuriya, 1 and Rasika Perera 2 1 Medical Laboratory Sciences Unit, Department of Allied Health Sciences, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Gangodawila, 10250 Nugegoda, Sri Lanka 2 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Gangodawila, 10250 Nugegoda, Sri Lanka Correspondence should be addressed to Gayashan Chathuranga; gayashanchathu@yahoo.com Received 30 May 2014; Revised 20 August 2014; Accepted 7 September 2014; Published 22 September 2014 Academic Editor: Bruno Annibale Copyright © 2014 Gayashan Chathuranga et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Anaemia is a major public health problem that has afected around 25% of the world’s population. An analytical cross-sectional study was performed on 313 female undergraduates residing in hostels of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, during year 2011. Objective of this study was to determine prevalence and contributing factors to anaemia among the study population. Haemoglobin concentration was assayed using cyanomethaemoglobin method. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was used to retrieve information regarding dietary habits and personal factors of participants. Descriptive statistical methods, chi- square test, and independent sample t-test were used to analyze data. Of the 302 females, 17.5% ( = 53) had mild anaemia and 7.9% ( = 24) had moderate anaemia. Severely anaemic individuals were not observed. Participants’ dietary habits and personal factors were not signifcantly associated with prevalence of anaemia (whether a participant is a vegetarian or not ( = 0.525), drinking tea within one hour of a meal ( = 0.775), frequency of consumption of red meat, fsh, and eggs ( = 0.499), antihelminthic treatment within past year ( = 0.792), and menorrhagia ( = 0.560)). Anaemia in the study population is below the average for Sri Lankan data. Diet and selected medical conditions were not a causative factor for anaemia in this population. 1. Introduction Anaemia is a global public health problem. It causes human death as well as social and economic problems in both developing and developed countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it has afected 24.8% of the world’s population [1]. In neighboring India, one in every two women sufers from anaemia [2]. When anaemia prevalence is 20–39.9% of the general population, it is considered as a moderate public health problem by WHO [1]. In Sri Lanka, anaemia has become a moderate public health problem among preschool, nonpregnant, and pregnant populations as the prevalence is 33%, 39%, and 34%, respectively [3]. According to the WHO, the highest number of individuals afected by anaemia is observed in nonpregnant women aged 15–49.99 years [4]. In Sri Lanka, 39% of females in this category are afected by anaemia [3]. Most of the anaemic cases are due to nutritional defciencies [4]. Women of childbearing age are having an additional risk of developing anaemia because of their monthly menstrual blood loss and nearly 50 percent of females in this age group are anaemic [5]. On average a healthy woman loses about 25–30 mL of blood monthly. Terefore, the body needs to produce blood in order to compensate for this loss and if the essential nutrients required for haemopoiesis are not supplied in their diet, anaemia will develop. Prevalence of anaemia among nonpregnant women is 30.2% worldwide and in Asia it is 33% accounting to about 318.5 million individuals. Out of the total nonpregnant anaemic individuals of the world, nearly 3/4 reside in Asia. Anaemia among nonpregnant women has become a public health problem in 191 countries out of the 192 member countries of WHO [4]. Hindawi Publishing Corporation Anemia Volume 2014, Article ID 526308, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/526308