Exploratory Spatial and Temporal Analysis of the Territorial Coexistence of Undernutrition and Excess Weight Among Children Under Five Years of Age in Peru, 2014–2024

The coexistence of undernutrition and excess weight is an important child public health challenge. This study described temporal trends and departmental spatial configurations of wasting, stunting, overweight, and obesity among children under five years of age in Peru during 2014–2024. Analyses used anthropometric assessment records from the Nutritional Status Information System (SIEN), collected in public healthcare facilities and aggregated by department and year. Annual Percentage Change summarized average temporal trends, while observed prevalence maps, Global Moran’s I, Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), and a median-based bivariate classification were applied independently to 2014, 2019, and 2024. Queen contiguity was the primary spatial specification, along with KNN-4 sensitivity analysis. Wasting and obesity increased on average, stunting decreased, and overweight showed no significant long-term trend. Global autocorrelation was most consistent for wasting, whereas findings for excess-weight indicators were sensitive to the weights matrix. LISA identified local spatial classifications at nominal p < 0.05; however, these findings were exploratory because no multiple-testing correction was applied. The bivariate classification identified two, four, and three departments with concurrent high relative undernutrition and excess-weight scores in 2014, 2019, and 2024, respectively. These record-based findings show territorial heterogeneity within SIEN but do not represent population prevalence, causal geographic effects, or an integrated spatiotemporal process.