Remote Assessment of Pediatric Anthropometrics

Area of Science:

• Pediatric health and nutrition
• Biostatistics and measurement science
• Remote patient monitoring

Background:

• Accurate anthropometric measurements are crucial for assessing child growth and health.
• Traditional in-person assessments can be resource-intensive and challenging to access.
• Caregiver-administered measurements offer a potential solution for remote health monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reliability and accuracy of anthropometric measurements taken by caregivers compared to trained examiners.
• To assess the feasibility and burden of remote anthropometric data collection.
• To determine if caregiver measurements are interchangeable with examiner measurements in children aged 0-17 years.

Main Methods:

• 199 children (median age 4.69 years) participated across 6 US sites.
• Trained examiners and caregivers measured infant length/child height, weight, percent body fat, head size, and waist circumference.
• Interrater reliability, technical error of measurement (TEM), and mean absolute difference (MAD) were used to assess concordance.

Main Results:

• High concordance was found between caregiver and examiner measurements (reliability coefficients 0.91–>0.99, ICC 0.92–>0.99).
• Low technical error of measurement (TEM) and mean absolute difference (MAD) were observed across all anthropometric outcomes.
• Caregiver measurements demonstrated high accuracy and reliability comparable to examiner measurements.

Conclusions:

• Caregiver-administered anthropometric measurements are reliable and interchangeable with examiner measurements.
• Remote anthropometric assessment is a feasible, low-burden, and valid alternative to in-person methods.
• These findings support the use of remote assessments for monitoring child growth and health outcomes.