Cargando…
Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study
High prevalence of child underweight and stunting in high-altitude areas has often been reported. However, most previous studies on this topic were cross-sectional. Another critical concern is that using the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards to evaluate child growth in high-alti...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277569/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32455978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103652 |
_version_ | 1783543148547407872 |
---|---|
author | Yang, Wen-Chien Fu, Chun-Min Su, Bo-Wei Ouyang, Chung-Mei Yang, Kuen-Cheh |
author_facet | Yang, Wen-Chien Fu, Chun-Min Su, Bo-Wei Ouyang, Chung-Mei Yang, Kuen-Cheh |
author_sort | Yang, Wen-Chien |
collection | PubMed |
description | High prevalence of child underweight and stunting in high-altitude areas has often been reported. However, most previous studies on this topic were cross-sectional. Another critical concern is that using the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards to evaluate child growth in high-altitude areas may lead to overestimations of underweight and stunting. Our study aimed to evaluate the long-term growth pattern of children (3 to 18 years) above the altitude of 3500 m in Ladakh, India. The participants’ body weight (BW), body height (BH), and body mass index (BMI) were measured annually according to the WHO Child Growth Standards for children under 5 years old and the WHO reference data for children aged 5 to 19 years. The generalized estimating equation (GEE) was used to estimate the means and z-scores of BW, BH, and BMI at different ages. A total of 401 children were enrolled from 2012 to 2018. Their mean z-scores of BW, BH, and BMI were −1.47, −1.44, and −0.85 in 2012 and increased to −0.74, −0.92, and −0.63 in 2018. This population’s specific growth curve was also depicted, which generally fell below the 85th percentile of the WHO standards. This is the first cohort study about long-term child growth patterns in a high-altitude area. The detailed underlying mechanisms of our findings need future research on more representative data of high-altitude populations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7277569 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72775692020-06-12 Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study Yang, Wen-Chien Fu, Chun-Min Su, Bo-Wei Ouyang, Chung-Mei Yang, Kuen-Cheh Int J Environ Res Public Health Article High prevalence of child underweight and stunting in high-altitude areas has often been reported. However, most previous studies on this topic were cross-sectional. Another critical concern is that using the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards to evaluate child growth in high-altitude areas may lead to overestimations of underweight and stunting. Our study aimed to evaluate the long-term growth pattern of children (3 to 18 years) above the altitude of 3500 m in Ladakh, India. The participants’ body weight (BW), body height (BH), and body mass index (BMI) were measured annually according to the WHO Child Growth Standards for children under 5 years old and the WHO reference data for children aged 5 to 19 years. The generalized estimating equation (GEE) was used to estimate the means and z-scores of BW, BH, and BMI at different ages. A total of 401 children were enrolled from 2012 to 2018. Their mean z-scores of BW, BH, and BMI were −1.47, −1.44, and −0.85 in 2012 and increased to −0.74, −0.92, and −0.63 in 2018. This population’s specific growth curve was also depicted, which generally fell below the 85th percentile of the WHO standards. This is the first cohort study about long-term child growth patterns in a high-altitude area. The detailed underlying mechanisms of our findings need future research on more representative data of high-altitude populations. MDPI 2020-05-22 2020-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7277569/ /pubmed/32455978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103652 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Yang, Wen-Chien Fu, Chun-Min Su, Bo-Wei Ouyang, Chung-Mei Yang, Kuen-Cheh Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study |
title | Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study |
title_full | Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study |
title_fullStr | Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study |
title_short | Child Growth Curves in High-Altitude Ladakh: Results from a Cohort Study |
title_sort | child growth curves in high-altitude ladakh: results from a cohort study |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277569/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32455978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103652 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT yangwenchien childgrowthcurvesinhighaltitudeladakhresultsfromacohortstudy AT fuchunmin childgrowthcurvesinhighaltitudeladakhresultsfromacohortstudy AT subowei childgrowthcurvesinhighaltitudeladakhresultsfromacohortstudy AT ouyangchungmei childgrowthcurvesinhighaltitudeladakhresultsfromacohortstudy AT yangkuencheh childgrowthcurvesinhighaltitudeladakhresultsfromacohortstudy |