Prevalence of anemia among school-children from Rio Acima (State of Minas Gerais, Brazil): use of the standardized prevalence method and evaluation of iron deficiency.
The prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency was investigated in 332 children aged 7 to 15 years, 156 (47%) boys and 176 (53%) girls enrolled in the schools of the municipality of Rio Acima, MG. Seventy-four children were white (22.3%), 218 were mulatto (65.7%), and 40 were black (12%). Mean hemoglobin level was 12.75 +/- 0.75 g/dl. Lower values were determined for black children (12.32 +/- 0.87g/dl) compared to white (12.76 +/- 0.99 g/dl) and mulatto (12.81 +/- 0.94 g/dl) children. The prevalence of anemia was 16.6% when determined on the basis of the percentage of children with hemoglobin values lower than the 3rd percentile for age and sex (standard method), and 36.2% when determined by the standardized prevalence method for the evaluation of the prevalence of malnutrition in populations. Depletion of iron reserves was 8.13% for the population in general and 20% for the anemic children. This low prevalence of iron deficiency may have been the result of the value adopted as the lower normal limit (10 ng/ml) for serum ferritin values. The small percentage of anemic children with iron depletion may also be justified by the standard of normality adopted for hemoglobin values which was originally elaborated for the white population of North America and Finland and therefore may be inadequate for the population studied here, of diverse racial composition.
Norton
R C
RC
Departamento de Pediatria, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Figueiredo
R C
RC
Diamante
R
R
Goulart
E M
EM
Mota
J A
JA
Viana
M B
MB
Penna
F J
FJ
Leão
E
E
D000293:Adolescent; D018798:Anemia, Iron-Deficiency / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male