Effect of nutrition survey 'cleaning criteria' on estimates of malnutrition prevalence and disease burden: secondary data analysis.

ABSTRACT: Tackling childhood malnutrition is a global health priority. A key indicator is the estimated prevalence of malnutrition, measured by nutrition surveys. Most aspects of survey design are standardised, but data 'cleaning criteria' are not. These aim to exclude extreme values which may represent measurement or data-entry errors. The effect of different cleaning criteria on malnutrition prevalence estimates was unknown. We applied five commonly used data cleaning criteria (WHO 2006; EPI-Info; WHO 1995 fixed; WHO 1995 flexible; SMART) to 21 national Demographic and Health Survey datasets. These included a total of 163,228 children, aged 6-59 months. We focused on wasting (low weight-for-height), a key indicator for treatment programmes. Choice of cleaning criteria had a marked effect: SMART we

SUBMITTER: Crowe S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4034601 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature