MUAC-for-age more useful than absolute MUAC for nutritional surveillance in Somalia: results from nineteen cross-sectional surveys (2007-2016)

BMC Nutrition
Estefania CustodioFrancois Kayitakire

Abstract

Somalia is affected by a civil war and a protracted humanitarian crisis for more than two decades. The international community has put in place nutrition surveillance systems to monitor the situation and inform decisions. However, the indicators commonly used to identify acute malnutrition, weight-for-height Z-score (WHZ) and mid upper arm circumference (MUAC), do not always converge in their estimations of acute malnutrition, creating challenges for decision making. Furthermore, the divergences are not consistent across livelihood populations within the country. We explored the MUAC-for-age Z-score (MUACAZ) as an alternative indicator in Somalia to minimize the discrepancy. We analyzed data from nineteen cross-sectional surveys conducted in Somalia between 2007 and 2016. We compared the acute malnutrition prevalence estimates by each of the indicators and the degree of overlap in the individual diagnosis of acute malnutrition between the WHZ and the MUAC-based indicators. We performed multivariate regression analysis with sex, age and stunting as independent variables and acute malnutrition as the dependent outcome, defined by WHZ, MUAC or MUACAZ. We performed all the analysis in the population overall and in each of the livel...Continue Reading

References

Jul 1, 1971·American Journal of Physical Anthropology·A R FrisanchoL D McCreery
Aug 1, 1982·The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition·K H BrownA Hoque
Aug 1, 1996·The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition·S Y Soares-Wynter, S P Walker
Jun 2, 2005·European Journal of Clinical Nutrition·J F FriedmanF ter Kuile
Aug 4, 2005·JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association·James BerkleyKathryn Maitland
Jul 1, 2010·Pediatrics·Miguel Angel Luque FernándezMichel Van Herp
Jun 13, 2012·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health·John B MasonPaul Spiegel
Mar 22, 2016·Emerging Themes in Epidemiology·Veronica Tuffrey, Andrew Hall

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
GAM

Software Mentioned

MUACAZ
Stata
Emergency Nutrition Assessment ( ENA )

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