Department of Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
Department of Physiology & Cell Biology, University of Health Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.
Sci Rep. 2022 Apr 1;12(1):5501. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-09511-3.
Epidemiology of stunting in < 5 years old is well characterized; however, its prevalence in adolescence is inconsistent in different geographical locations. We estimated the prevalence of stunting in schoolgirls of Punjab, Pakistan, to standardize local references according to international and national references. In this population-wide cross-sectional study, 10,050 schoolgirls aged 8-16 years from 12 different districts of northern, central, and southern Punjab were analyzed. The prevalence of stunting was calculated by applying Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) height-for-age references and the local reference for the study population. We used Cohen's kappa statistics to analyze the agreement of our data with reference values, and chi-square test was used as the test of trend. Marked overestimation of the prevalence of stunting was observed (22.72% and 17.49% according to CDC and WHO, respectively) in comparison to local reference (4.94%). According to CDC and WHO references, there was an increasing trend of prevalence of stunting with higher age; however, data was comparable across all the age groups when local references were applied. We recommend that the prevalence of stunting in school-age girls should be determined by applying local height references rather than international ones to plan health strategies and treatments in the local population.
5 岁以下儿童发育迟缓的流行病学特征描述得很好；然而，其在青春期的流行率在不同地理位置并不一致。我们根据国际和国家参考标准，估计了巴基斯坦旁遮普省少女发育迟缓的流行率，以标准化当地参考标准。在这项全人群横断面研究中，分析了来自旁遮普省北部、中部和南部 12 个不同地区的 10050 名 8-16 岁的女学生。应用疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）和世界卫生组织（WHO）身高年龄参考标准和研究人群的本地参考标准来计算发育迟缓的流行率。我们使用 Cohen 的kappa 统计来分析我们的数据与参考值的一致性，并使用卡方检验作为趋势检验。与本地参考标准（4.94%）相比，我们观察到根据 CDC 和 WHO 参考标准，发育迟缓的流行率存在明显的高估（分别为 22.72%和 17.49%）。根据 CDC 和 WHO 的参考标准，随着年龄的增长，发育迟缓的流行率呈上升趋势；然而，当应用本地参考标准时，所有年龄组的数据都是可比的。我们建议，应通过应用本地身高参考标准而不是国际参考标准来确定学龄期女孩发育迟缓的流行率，以便在当地人群中制定卫生策略和治疗方案。
