SCHOOL PERFORMANCE, NUTRITIONAL-STATUS AND TRICHURIASIS IN JAMAICAN SCHOOLCHILDREN

Severe infections by the geohelminth Trichuris trichiura detrimentally affect young children's growth and development. There is concern that mild to moderate infections may affect older children's school perfor mance and nutritional status. We therefore examined the relationship b etween varying intensities of infection and school achievement, attend ance and nutritional status in 616 schoolchildren. A total of 409 chil dren with Trichuris infection of intensities greater than 1200 eggs pe r gram of stool (epg) were first identified, then for every 2 infected children in a class, an uninfected child was selected. After controll ing for socioeconomic status, gender, age, school and the presence of Ascaris infections, the uninfected children had higher reading and ari thmetic scores than children with infections of more than 4000 epg and were taller than those with intensities greater than 2000 epg. Howeve r, there were no significant differences in spelling, school attendanc e and body mass index. Although a treatment trial is needed to determi ne causation, these results indicate that moderate levels of infection are associated with poor school achievement and growth.