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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
09:36

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study

Published on: February 2, 2017

Proposed new anthropometric indices of childhood undernutrition

Kaushik Bose1, Gopal Chandra Mandal

  • 1Department of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, India.

Malaysian Journal of Nutrition
|June 14, 2012
PubMed

Insights

New indices, Stunting Index (SI), Underweight Index (UI), and Wasting Index (WI), offer a novel way to assess childhood undernutrition relative to the Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF). These indices provide deeper insights into specific undernutrition forms within populations.

Area of Science:

  • Public Health
  • Pediatrics
  • Nutrition Science

Background:

  • Childhood undernutrition is conventionally measured using stunting, underweight, and wasting.
  • The Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF) offers a composite measure of undernutrition.
  • There is a need for indices that quantify specific undernutrition types relative to the overall burden.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To introduce and validate three new indices: Stunting Index (SI), Underweight Index (UI), and Wasting Index (WI).
  • These indices are derived by normalizing conventional anthropometric failures by the CIAF.
  • To compare the utility of these new indices using local and national datasets.

Main Methods:

  • Construction of SI, UI, and WI as ratios relative to the CIAF.
  • Calculation and comparison of these indices using a primary dataset.
  • Application and analysis of the indices on existing large-scale datasets (All India, Coimbatore).

Main Results:

  • Calculated sex-combined SI, UI, and WI values from the study dataset were 0.364, 0.866, and 0.684.
  • Analysis of the All India dataset yielded SI=0.756, UI=0.788, and WI=0.266.
  • Coimbatore dataset showed similar values: SI=0.723, UI=0.681, and WI=0.294.

Conclusions:

  • The proposed Stunting Index, Underweight Index, and Wasting Index provide valuable additional information.
  • These indices offer a nuanced understanding of the prevalence of different undernutrition forms relative to the total undernutrition level.
  • The findings support the utility of SI, UI, and WI for epidemiological studies on childhood malnutrition.

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