Arm Circumference v. Weight-for-Height in Nutritional Assessment: Are the Findings Comparable?

Arm circumference (AC) has been proposed as an alternative to weight-for-height (W/H) as a measure of acute malnutrition because of its low cost and ease of performance, particularly for rapid field assessments of nutritional status in circumstances where resources and trained personnel are limited. Few studies, however, have evaluated the performance of AC as compared to W/H as a measure of acute malnutrition. We used data from rapid nutrition assessments conducted during 1984–85 in Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Niger to compare the prevalence of malnutrition as measured by these two indices employing commonly used cut-offs for severe and moderate malnutrition. We further evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of AC compared with W/H for severe and moderate malnutrition. The prevalence of severe malnutrition was 5 per cent using the cut-off of AC < 12.5cm and 1 per cent using the cut-off of W/H < 70 per cent of median; for moderate malnutrition (AC < 13.5cm and w/h