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Analyzing concordance between MUAC, MUACZ, and WHZ in diagnosing acute malnutrition among children under 5 in Somalia

2025-02-21 nutrition Title + abstract only
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BackgroundAcute malnutrition, also known as wasting, affected an estimated 45 million children under 5 (CU5) globally in 2023. Wasting is measured using a childs mid upper arm circumference (MUAC), weight-for-height z-score (WHZ), or nutritional edema. In low-resource contexts, MUAC is often the only measurement used to regularly screen for malnutrition, but recent research suggests MUAC alone fails to diagnose 25%-80% of WHZ-wasted children. MUACZ, an age-adjusted MUAC z-score, may identify add...

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