Prevalence of malnutrition among pre-school children in, South-east Nigeria Pius CManyike Josephat MChinawa2 Agozie ubesie2, Herbert A obu2, odutola lodetunde and Awoere T Chinawa Abstract Background Malnutrition can be defined as a state of nutrition where the weight for age, height for age and weight for height indices are below -2 Z-score of the NCHS reference. It has posed a great economic burden to the developing world objectives: The objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of malnutrition among pre-school children in abakiliki in Ebonyi state of Nigeria. Methods: This is a cross-sectional studies that assess the prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors among children aged 1-5 years attending nursery and primary schools. Nutritional assessment was done using anthropometry and clinical examination. Results: A total of 616 children aged one to 5 years were enrolled into this study. Three hundred and sixty-seven (596% were males while 249 (404%) were females. Sixty of the 616 children (9.7% had acute malnutrition based on WHZ-score. Moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) was present in 33 children (5.3% while 27 (4.4%) had severe acute malnutrition. Conclusions: The prevalence of global and severe acute malnutrition using z score is 9.7% and 44% respectively while that of stunting is 99% with a male preponderance. Keywords Z-score, Malnutrition, Pre-school, Children, Nigeria