Benjamin-Chung, J;
Mertens, A;
Colford, JM;
Hubbard, AE;
van der Laan, MJ;
Coyle, J;
Sofrygin, O;
... West, KP; + view all
(2023)
Early-childhood linear growth faltering in low- and middle-income countries.
Nature
, 621
(7979)
pp. 550-557.
10.1038/s41586-023-06418-5.
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Abstract
Globally, 149 million children under 5 years of age are estimated to be stunted (length more than 2 standard deviations below international growth standards) 1,2. Stunting, a form of linear growth faltering, increases the risk of illness, impaired cognitive development and mortality. Global stunting estimates rely on cross-sectional surveys, which cannot provide direct information about the timing of onset or persistence of growth faltering—a key consideration for defining critical windows to deliver preventive interventions. Here we completed a pooled analysis of longitudinal studies in low- and middle-income countries (n = 32 cohorts, 52,640 children, ages 0–24 months), allowing us to identify the typical age of onset of linear growth faltering and to investigate recurrent faltering in early life. The highest incidence of stunting onset occurred from birth to the age of 3 months, with substantially higher stunting at birth in South Asia. From 0 to 15 months, stunting reversal was rare; children who reversed their stunting status frequently relapsed, and relapse rates were substantially higher among children born stunted. Early onset and low reversal rates suggest that improving children’s linear growth will require life course interventions for women of childbearing age and a greater emphasis on interventions for children under 6 months of age.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Early-childhood linear growth faltering in low- and middle-income countries |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41586-023-06418-5 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06418-5 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Developing world, Epidemiology, Malnutrition, Paediatric research |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10177619 |
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