Analysing concordance between MUAC, MUACZ, and WHZ in diagnosing acute malnutrition among children under five in Somalia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Acute malnutrition, also known as wasting, affected an estimated 45 million children under five (CU5) globally in 2023. Wasting is measured using a child's mid upper arm circumference (MUAC), weight-for-height z-score (WHZ), or nutritional oedema. In low-resource contexts, MUAC is often the only measurement used to regularly screen for malnutrition, but recent research suggests MUAC alone fails to diagnose 25-80% of WHZ-wasted children. Mid upper arm circumference, an age-adjusted MUAC z-score, may identify additional cases missed by MUAC alone.

Methods

This was a secondary analysis of 1408 CU5 enrolled in a cluster-randomised controlled trial in two high-wasting regions of Somalia. This analysis explored wasting prevalences, concordance between indicator pairs, l

SUBMITTER: Garretson S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12699285 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature