Current dichotomous metrics obscure trends in severe and extreme child growth failure-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Current dichotomous metrics obscure trends in severe and extreme child growth failure

Published:2022-05-20 Issue:20 Volume:8 Page:
ISSN:2375-2548
Container-title:Science Advances
language:en
Short-container-title:Sci. Adv.

Author:

Fitzgerald Ryan¹²^ORCID,Manguerra Helena¹,Arndt Michael B.¹²^ORCID,Gardner William M.¹^ORCID,Chang Ya-Yin¹^ORCID,Zigler Bethany¹,Taylor Heather Jean¹^ORCID,Bienhoff Kelly¹,Smith David L.¹³^ORCID,Murray Christopher J. L.¹³^ORCID,Hay Simon I.¹³^ORCID,Reiner Robert C.¹³^ORCID,Kassebaum Nicholas J.¹²³⁴^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

2. Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

3. Department of Health Metrics Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

4. Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Abstract

Historically, the prevalence of child growth failure (CGF) has been tracked dichotomously as the proportion of children more than 2 SDs below the median of the World Health Organization growth standards. However, this conventional “thresholding” approach fails to recognize child growth as a spectrum and obscures trends in populations with the highest rates of CGF. Our analysis presents the first ever estimates of entire distributions of HAZ, WHZ, and WAZ for each of 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020 for children less than 5 years old by age group and sex. This approach reflects the continuous nature of CGF, allows us to more comprehensively assess shrinking or widening disparities over time, and reveals otherwise hidden trends that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations.

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Subject

Multidisciplinary

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