ArticleChildren (Basel, Switzerland)2025
The Impact of WHO-2023 Malnutrition Criteria on Caseload of Infants Aged Under Six Months: Secondary Data Analysis.
Article in Children (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Undernutrition in Infants Aged Under Six Months: A Multi-Center Cross-Sectional Study in Two Governorates in Yemen.Nutrients · 2026Article
- A WHO global research priority agenda for wasting and nutritional oedema in infants and children under 5 years.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Exploring the acceptability and adherence of the integrated MAMI care pathway for supporting vulnerable infants and their mothers in South Sudan: a qualitative study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Introduction to the Special Issue "Nutritional Status and Eating Patterns in Children and Adolescents: Prevalence, Screening and Prevention of Metabolic Disorders".Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesThe 2023 World Health Organization (WHO) guideline on infants aged under six months (u6m) wasting now includes mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and weight for age Z score (WAZ) as malnutrition treatment programme enrolment criteria. Evidence for the new criteria and optimal cut-offs is, however, sparse. We aimed to explore the potential caseload implications of the new criteria and explore how different cut-offs might affect them.
methodsWe conducted a secondary analysis of data from 1048 Ethiopian infants u6m using STATA software version 17. Frequency tables and percentages were used to present malnutrition across various characteristics. The chi-square test with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) at a
resultsWe found substantial overlaps among anthropometric indicators of malnutrition in infants defined by the WHO-2023 programme enrolment criteria. New WHO criteria result in a larger potential caseload (19.2% for 6 weeks to 6 months and 15.1% for infants under 6 weeks) compared with WHO-2013 criteria (2.4%). Whilst there are marked overlaps between low WAZ, low WLZ, and low MUAC, they capture different infants. An MUAC of <110 mm alone would capture only a third of all cases identified by WAZ and/or WLZ < -2.
conclusionsIn Ethiopia, the WHO-2023 criteria markedly increase malnutrition caseloads compared with WHO-2013 criteria. There might be a case for increasing MUAC thresholds in MUAC-focused programs where WLZ or WAZ measurements are difficult. Future longitudinal data are needed to know which criteria best identify infants at highest risk of mortality/morbidity/poor development.
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