BackgroundChildhood malnutrition is a multi-dimensional problem. An increase in household income is not sufficient to reduce childhood malnutrition if children are deprived of food security, education, access to water, sanitation and health services. The aim of this study is to identify the characteristics of malnourished children below five years of age and to ascertain the risk factors of childhood malnutrition in a state in Malaysia.MethodsA case control study was conducted in the maternal and child health clinics in five districts of Terengganu, Malaysia from April to August 2012. Case was a child with moderate to severe malnutrition with z-scores < −2SD from the median of WHO reference. Control was a child without malnutrition with z-scores between -2SD and +2SD and the age matched with case’s. Face to face interviews with the respective child’s mother and measurements of the respective child’s weight and height were carried out. Information on socio-economic characteristics, household food security status, child’s dietary intake, caregivers’ practices and resources were enquired. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted. Crude odds ratio and adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval were calculated.ResultsA total of 274 children with 137 cases and 137 controls were recruited. All respondents were Malays. Among the cases, a larger proportion of them was female and originated from low income families. After adjusting all confounders, childhood malnutrition was significantly associated with number of children (aOR: 5.86, 95% CI: 1.96, 17.55), child hunger (aOR: 16.38, 95% CI: 1.34,199.72), dietary energy intake (aOR: 0.99, 95% CI: 0.98, 0.99), protein intake (aOR: 1.06, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.12), vitamin A intake (aOR: 0.999, 95% CI: 0.997, 1.00), low birth weight (aOR: 6.83, 95% CI: 1.62, 28.89), frequent illness (aOR: 2.79, 95% CI: 1.06, 7.31), and history of worm infection (aOR: 3.48, 95% CI: 1.25, 9.70).ConclusionsLower socio-economic status, household food insecurity, and poor child caring practices were associated with childhood malnutrition. Besides implementation of programmes focusing on poverty reduction, community based nutrition and hygiene education with extensive family planning and de-worming programmes should be intensified to improve both mother and children’s nutritional status.

The university's environment today is very challenging and demanding due to changes in policies and the increasing standard and expectation of education in Malaysia. On top of that, the academic staffs especially lecturers, not only need to focus on teaching but also to embark on research and consultancy. Due to these pressures, it is important to explore the emotional intelligence of academic staff to identify their capabilities as they are the main resources of the university in producing better and highly qualified graduates. The institutions of higher learning have been looking for an educational environment with highly effective academic lecturers. Considering the important role of emotional intelligence in determining the performance of professionals in organizations and the need for enhancing academic performance in term of teaching activities and research & scholarly activities effectiveness in the classroom, this study intends to describe the factors that determine the relationship between emotional intelligence and the academic performance of academic staff in private educational institutions in Malaysia. This study highlighted four important dimensions in emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, based on research problems. Furthermore, academic performance (research and scholarly activities, as well as teaching activities) was combined with emotional intelligence in this study. In order to satisfy the study objectives, four key hypotheses were developed. To analyse the association between emotional intelligence dimensions and academic performance, hypotheses tested. Descriptive statistics, as well as correlation and multiple regression analysis, are used to assess academic performance. This research applied a quantitative method approach to cast the researchers' net wider to include selected higher educational institutions to obtain as much data as possible. The results demonstrate a significant relationship between various factors of emotional intelligence and academic performance of academic workers in private higher educational institutions. Therefore, these significant findings shed further light on the theoretical and practical utility of the construct of emotional intelligence and academic performance and have proven the fact that emotional intelligence is accountable for and could predict academic performance. This study will help

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