Anthropometry and childhood mortality in northwest and southwest Uganda.

Abstract

Two longitudinal studies were carried out in northwest and southwest Uganda to examine the relationship between anthropometry and childhood mortality. Although the prevalence of malnutrition was significantly different between the two geographic areas, the relative risk for mortality associated with low levels of anthropometry was similar. When the anthropometric parameters were compared among each other, mid-upper arm circumference was found to be the most powerful predictor of mortality. The findings of this study confirm that mid-upper arm circumference is the indicator of choice to identify children at higher risk of death.

Challenges of nutritional assessment in pediatric ICU

“…The arm measurements, in addition to the malnutrition markers, have proven to be good mortality predictors in population studies [21][22][23][24]. Compared with the BMI, the mid-arm muscle area circumference was a better mortality predictor in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [24].…”

How useful are anthropometric, clinical and dietary measurements of nutritional status as predictors of morbidity of young children in central Africa?

“…(1987) reached similarly equivocal conclusions. In Uganda, observations by Vella et al . (1993) implied that less than 20% of children identified as being at high risk of mortality through early measurement of arm circumference died during the follow‐up.…”

“…In Guinea-Bissau, Smedman et al (1987) reached similarly equivocal conclusions. In Uganda, observations by Vella et al (1993) implied that less than 20% of children identified as being at high risk of mortality through early measurement of arm circumference died during the follow-up. None of these studies were able to provide conclusive evidence that nutritional anthropometry would succeed in identifying children at high risk of morbidity, despite the policy importance of such an issue.…”

Mid-upper arm circumference at age of routine infant vaccination to identify infants at elevated risk of death: a retrospective cohort study in the Gambia

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] For children aged 0 to 60 months, WHO recommends using WFLz to define wasting, 15 since WFLz is a measure of undernutrition adjusted for height and therefore independent of stunting in its description of wasting. For any given anthropometric measure, a Z score indicates how many standard deviations below or above a reference median an individual value is found.…”