ArticlePublic health nutrition2021
Mid-upper arm circumference as a screening tool for identifying adolescents with thinness.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The performance of mid-upper arm circumference for identifying children and adolescents with overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Public health nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- Validation of mid-upper arm circumference against to body mass index-for-age for assessing nutritional status among school adolescents in Ethiopia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Food consumption patterns and score among women receiving cash assistance: emergency nutrition response in drought affected pastoralist community eastern Ethiopia.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Factors associated with wasting among pediatric cancer patients aged 2-17 years at Uganda cancer institute: A cross-sectional study.PloS one · 2025Article
- Population Nutritional Status in Addis Health and Demographic Surveillance System (ADDIS-HDSS), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Ethiopian journal of health sciences · 2024Article
- Assessing implementation outcomes for launching balanced energy protein supplementation: A formative study in rural Bangladesh.Maternal & child nutrition · 2024Article
- Mid-upper-arm circumference: a surrogate measure for BMI for age z-score to identify thinness among adolescent girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Prediction of Hypertension Based on Anthropometric Parameters in Adolescents in Eastern Sudan: A Community-Based Study.Vascular health and risk management · 2024Article
- Establishment of prediction equations for subcutaneous tissue thickness in two representative intramuscular deltoid injections.Vaccine: X · 2023Article
- Mid-upper arm circumference as a screening tool for identifying underweight adolescents.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Discriminatory performance of mid-upper arm circumference for identifying thin and severely thin adolescents: a secondary data analysis using Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey.Nepal journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the performance of mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) to identify thinness in the late adolescence period (aged 15-19 years) in Ethiopia.
designWe conducted a school-based cross-sectional study. The receiver operating characteristics curve was used to examine the validity of MUAC compared with BMI Z-score to identify adolescents with thinness (BMI Z-score <-2 sd). SETTINGS: Fifteen high schools (grade 9-12) located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
participantsA total of 851 adolescent (456 males and 395 females) were included in the study.
resultsThe prevalence of thinness and severe thinness among high-school adolescents in Addis Ababa was 9·5 % (95 % CI 7·7, 11·7 %). The overall AUC for MUAC against BMI Z-score <-2 SD was 0·91 (95 % CI 0·88, 0·93). The optimal MUAC cut-offs to identify thinness were 23·3 cm for males and 22·6 cm for females. These cut-off points give high sensitivity and specificity for both males (a sensitivity of 87·9 % and a specificity of 75·9 %) and females (a sensitivity of 100 % and a specificity 88·2 %).
conclusionsMUAC has a comparable level of accuracy with BMI Z-score to identify thinness in adolescents aged 15-19 years. Hence, MUAC could be used as an alternative tool for surveillance and screening of thinness among adolescents aged 15-19 years. The optimum cut-off proposed by this study may incorrectly include a large number of adolescents when used in a relatively well-nourished population. In this situation, it would be necessary to choose a cut-off with greater positive predictive value.
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