Anthropometric indicators of nutritional status and level of mortality

The strength of the relationship between several anthropometric indicators of nutritional status, or more generally, standard of living, with overall mortality at the population level is compared. The anthropometic indicators examined include height, weight, weight-for-height, and weight-for-height² at various ages. The results demonstrate that height is most closely associated with the level of mortality. Weight-for height² , in contrast, has the weakest association with mortality. Of the ages examined, age 6 consistently has the strongest relationship with the level of mortality, whereas birthweight and adult measures have the lowest associations with the overall level of mortality, although the results for birthweight may be an artifact of biased data. Curiously, there is little or no sex difference in the slope of the relationship between anthropometric measure and level of mortality after correcting for smaller size and longer life expectancies of females compared to males. Overall, the anthropometric indicators are very highly correlated with mortality, exceeding 0.85 in some cases. This suggests that anthropometric dimensions may be a useful source of corroborative information when attempting to estimate demographic rates for populations where the demographic data are suspect. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.