PREVALENCE OF ANEMIA AMONG SCHOOLCHILDREN FROM RIO-ACIMA (STATE OF MINAS-CERAIS, BRAZIL) - USE OF THE STANDARDIZED PREVALENCE METHOD AND EVALUATION OF IRON-DEFICIENCY

The prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency was investigated in 332 c hildren aged 7 to 15 years, 156 (47%) boys and 176 (53%) girls enrolle d in the schools of the municipality of Rio Acima, MG. Seventy-four ch ildren were white (22.3%), 218 were mulatto (65.7%), and 40 were black (12%). Mean hemoglobin level was 12.75 +/- 0.75 g/dl. Lower values we re determined for black children (12.32 +/- 0.87 g/dl) compared to whi te (12.76 +/- 0.99 g/dl) and mulatto (12.81 +/- 0.94 g/dl) children. T he prevalence of anemia was 16.6% when determined on the basis of the percentage of children with hemoglobin values lower than the 3rd perce ntile for age and sex (standard method), and 36.2% when determined by the standardized prevalence method for the evaluation of the prevalenc e of malnutrition in populations. Depletion of iron reserves was 8.13% for the population in general and 20% for the anemic children. This l ow prevalence of iron deficiency may have been the result of the value adopted as the lower normal limit (10 ng/ml) for serum ferritin value s. The small percentage of anemic children with iron depletion may als o be justified by the standard of normality adopted for hemoglobin val ues which was originally elaborated for the white population of North America and Finland and therefore may be inadequate for the population studied here, of diverse racial composition.