A prospective study of the risk of diarrheal diseases according to the nutritional status of children.

Prospective field data were employed to examined the effect of child malnutrition on the subsequent risk of diarrhea among preschool children in rural Bangladesh. A total of 2019 children aged 12-23 months were classified according to weight-for-age, weight-for-height, and height-for-age of the Harvard median standard. Over a 24-month prospective period, diarrheal hospitalization rates among the children were matched to the initial anthropometric assessment. No differences in diarrheal hospitalization rates were noted for the children according to initial nutritional status. Another group of 207 children under five years of age were classified according to weight-for-age and their diarrheal attack rate in the field was followed prospectively for one year after nutritional assessment. Again, no differences in field diarrheal attack rates were noted between children of varying nutritional status categories. The nutritional status of the 207 children was then defined as monthly growth velocity (kilogram change in body weight, per cent change of initial body weight, and per cent change in weight-for-age) and the diarrheal attack rate for the subsequent one month period was observed. No differences in attack rates were noted between nutritional groups. The study failed to demonstrate that nutritional status defined by anthropometry was associated with the subsequent risk of diarrheal diseases.