Nutritional evaluation of undocumented children: a neglected health issue affecting the most fragile people

COMANDINI, ORNELLA;CABRAS, STEFANO;MARINI, ELISABETTA

2017-01-01

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Abstract

The precise knowledge of age is necessary for assessing a child's nutritional status. We show the magnitude and the effects of age error in real and hypothetical situations, and discuss possible compensative strategies. Using data collected in different years, we found that 79.8% of 1056 Ugandan children had some age knowledge, but there was a mean shift of 7.5 (+/- 8.8) months between ages obtained from different sources. Using a free software for calculating the effect of bias and random error, we showed the variation in malnutrition prevalence in hypothetical cases.