ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2008
Overlooking undernutrition? Using a composite index of anthropometric failure to assess how underweight misses and misleads the assessment of undernutrition in young children.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- How immediate and significant is the outcome of training on diversified diets, hygiene and food safety? An effort to mitigate child undernutrition in rural Malawi.Public health nutrition · 2018Trial
- Malnutrition Among Children Under Five in Djibouti: A Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure Analysis from the 2023 Multisectoral Survey.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Understanding the child malnutrition in rural India through the lens of the composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF): evidence from NFHS-5 (2019-21).BMC public health · 2026Article
- The prevalence of undernutrition among children in Malaysia: the difference between conventional assessments and the composite index of anthropometric failure.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2026Article
- Provincial inequalities in child nutritional risk: a public health multivariate approach using Z-score matrices for spatial vulnerability assessment.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Early Childhood Dietary Exposure of Aflatoxins and Fumonisins in Tanzania: Role in Child Stunting and Possible Interventions (2003-2024).Food science & nutrition · 2025Review
- Malnutrition: The silent crisis: Collation of anthropometric measures of nutritional status in children under 2 years of age: A hospital-based case-control study.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2025Article
- Co-Occurrences of Forms of Child Undernutrition in India: Insights from the National Family Health Survey.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Residence-based disparities of composite index of anthropometric failures in East African under five children; multivariate decomposition analysis.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Adolescent pregnancy, maternal and child anaemia: Empirical analysis from India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.Maternal & child nutrition · 2025Article
- Undernutrition Among the Children from Different Social Groups in India: Prevalence, Determinants, and Transition Over Time (2005-2006 to 2019-2021).Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2024Article
- The Risk Factors Associated with the Prevalence of Multimorbidity of Anaemia, Malaria, and Malnutrition among Children Aged 6-59 Months in Nigeria.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Anthropometric failures and its predictors among under five children in Ethiopia: multilevel logistic regression model using 2019 Ethiopian demographic and health survey data.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Socio-economic, demographic, and contextual predictors of malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months in Nigeria.BMC nutrition · 2024Article
- Article
- Space-time dynamics regression models to assess variations of composite index for anthropometric failure across the administrative zones in Ethiopia.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Comparison of Different Nutritional Screening Approaches and the Determinants of Malnutrition in Under-Five Children in a Marginalized District of Punjab Province, Pakistan.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Observational
- Comparison of Child Undernutrition Anthropometric Indicators Across 56 Low- and Middle-Income Countries.JAMA network open · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In light of current international interest in the Millennium Development Goals, this short report examines the suitability of one of the primary indicators being used to assess progress. Using anthropometric data on 46,784 children aged 0-35 months in seven developing countries, we show how the weight for age (underweight) indicator is problematic but not for the reasons conventionally cited. We show that the information it provides about the degree and direction of change in undernutrition over time sometimes contradicts that provided by other conventional indicators. We demonstrate the potential of an alternative indicator, the composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF), which can be used to show the overall extent of undernutrition among children, and which provides an unequivocal statement on the direction and degree of change in undernutrition over time. Given the fundamental importance of undernutrition to child survival and health, the issues raised will be of interest to and have implications for policy makers and planners alike.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.