Table 3. Infant malnutrition at the first immunization visita as a predictor of death between then and 6 months of age, Ghana, India and Peru, 1995–1997.
| Malnutrition indicator at first immunization visitb | No. of deaths |
Sensitivity | Specificity | AUC (95% CI) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| among malnourished | among non-malnourished | ||||||
| Ghana (n = 2637) | |||||||
| WHO child growth standards | |||||||
| Stuntingc | 9 of 627 | 21 of 2007 | 30.0 | 76.3 | 0.53 (0.45–0.62) | ||
| Wastingd | 0 of 21 | 29 of 2587 | 0.0 | 98.9 | 0.50 (0.49–0.50) | ||
| Underweight | 7 of 331 | 23 of 2306 | 23.3 | 87.6 | 0.55 (0.48–0.63) | ||
| NCHS growth reference | |||||||
| Stuntingc | 5 of 288 | 25 of 2346 | 16.7 | 89.1 | 0.53 (0.46–0.60) | ||
| Wastingd | 0 of 3 | 27 of 2523 | 0.0 | 99.9 | 0.50 (0.50–0.50) | ||
| Underweight | 3 of 99 | 27 of 2538 | 10.0 | 96.3 | 0.53 (0.48–0.58) | ||
| India (n = 3718) | |||||||
| WHO child growth standards | |||||||
| Stuntingc | 31 of 1 049 | 16 of 2638 | 66.0 | 72.0 | 0.69 (0.62–0.76) | ||
| Wastingd | 23 of 486 | 22 of 3114 | 51.1 | 85.0 | 0.65 (0.56–0.74) | ||
| Underweight | 47 of 1458 | 10 of 2260 | 82.5 | 61.5 | 0.72 (0.67–0.77) | ||
| Severe underweighte | 40 of 561 | 17 of 3157 | 70.2 | 85.8 | 0.78 (0.72–0.84) | ||
| NCHS growth reference | |||||||
| Stuntingc | 24 of 599 | 23 of 3088 | 51.1 | 84.2 | 0.68 (0.60–0.75) | ||
| Wastingd | 7 of 50 | 23 of 3426 | 23.3 | 98.8 | 0.61 (0.53–0.69) | ||
| Underweight | 37 of 446 | 20 of 3272 | 64.9 | 88.8 | 0.77 (0.7–0.83) | ||
| Peru (n = 2251) | |||||||
| WHO child growth standards | |||||||
| Stuntingc | 1 of 149 | 12 of 2098 | 7.7 | 93.4 | 0.51 (0.43–0.58) | ||
| Wastingd | 0 of 16 | 13 of 2230 | 0.0 | 99.2 | 0.5 (0.5–0.5) | ||
| Underweight | 1 of 112 | 12 of 2139 | 7.7 | 95.0 | 0.51 (0.44–0.59) | ||
| NCHS growth reference | |||||||
| Stuntingc | 0 of 46 | 13 of 2201 | 0.0 | 97.9 | 0.49 (0.49–0.49) | ||
| Wastingd | 0 of 0 | 13 of 2241 | 0.0 | 100.0 | 0.5 (0.5–0.5) | ||
| Underweight | 0 of 21 | 13 of 2230 | 0.0 | 99.1 | 0.5 (0.49–0.5) | ||
AUC, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve; CI, confidence interval; NCHS, National Center for Health Statistics; WHO, World Health Organization. a The first immunization visit took place at 6 weeks in Ghana and India and at 10 weeks in Peru. b Malnutrition indicators were determined using either WHO child growth standards or the NCHS growth reference. c Stunting could not be assessed for 3, 31 and 4 infants in Ghana, India and Peru, respectively. d Wasting could not be assessed for 29, 118 and 5 infants in Ghana, India and Peru, respectively. e Figures for the severe malnutrition indicator were calculated only when the malnutrition indicator had a high sensitivity and a low specificity.