title: Prevalence of short stature in Saudi children and adolescents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Data on stature in Saudi children and adolescents are limited. The objective of this report was to establish the national prevalence of short stature in Saudi children and adolescents.
  
  
  METHODS
  Community-based, cross-sectional study conducted over 2 years (2004, 2005)
  
  
  METHODS
  The national data set of the Saudi reference was used to calculate the stature for age for children and adolescents 5 to 18 years of age. Using the 2007 World Health Organization (WHO) reference, the prevalence of moderate and severe short stature was defined as the proportion of children whose standard deviation score for stature for age was less than -2 and -3, respectively. In addition, the 2000 Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the older 1978 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)/WHO references were used for comparison.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using the 2007 WHO reference, sample size in the Saudi reference was 19 372 healthy children and adolescents 5 to 17 years of age, with 50.8% being boys. The overall prevalence of moderate and severe short stature in boys was 11.3% and 1.8%, respectively; and in girls, 10.5% and 1.2%, respectively. The prevalence of moderate short stature was 12.1%, 11% and 11.3% in boys and 10.9%, 11.3% and 10.5% in girls when the 1978 WHO, the 2000 CDC and the 2007 WHO references were used, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The national prevalence of short stature in Saudi children and adolescents is intermediate compared with the international level. Improvement in the socioeconomic and health status of children and adolescents should lead to a reduction in the prevalence of short stature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. drmouzan@gmail.com
authors.forename: Mohammad I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: El Mouzan
authors.forename: Abdullah S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Al Herbish
authors.forename: Abdullah A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Al Salloum
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.forename: Ahmad A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Al Omer
authors.forename: Mansour M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Qurachi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012016:Reference Values; D012529:Saudi Arabia; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014944:World Health Organization