ESTIMATING THE PREVALENCE OF HEIGHT FOR AGE DEFICITS BASED ON THE PREVALENCE OF LOW-WEIGHT FOR AGE AMONG BRAZILIAN CHILDREN

Introduction Anthropometry is frequently used for evaluating nutrition al status of individuals and populations. In recent years, community s urveys have been conducted by health professionals in various regions of Brazil with the objective of complementing the data obtained throug h nutritional surveillance programs. One important difficulty in condu cting these assessments has been measuring height during visits to the homes of survey participants. Methods Thirty-eight anthropometric sur veys of Brazilian children aged up to 5 years using the National Cente r for Health Statistics (NCHS) reference were identified. The percenta ge of children with a Z-score below standard deviations was used to de fine deficits of weight for age and height for age. Results Correlatio n between prevalences of height for age and weight for age deficits we re examined. Due to the low prevalence of deficits in weight for heigh t in all surveys, there was strong correlation between weight for age and height for age at the population level. Approximately 90% of the h eight for age (H/A) variation was accounted for by that of weight for age (W/A). Conclusions Using the equation, (prevalence H/A) = 0.74 + 2 .34 (Prevalence W/A) - 0.03 (Prevalence W/A)(2) it is possible to esti mate the prevalence of height deficits on the basis of prevalence of w eight deficits. These results suggest that anthropometric surveys as c onducted in Brazil, in the context of health services, can be simplifi ed by measuring weight only, instead of both weight and height.