Abbreviated Name:
Children under 5 who are wasted (moderate and severe)
Indicator Name:
Children under 5 who are wasted (moderate and severe)
Domain:
Health determinants and risks / Risk factors
Related Terms:
Child underweight, nutrition, severe stunting, stunting, wasting
Definition:
Prevalence of wasting (weight for height <-2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age.
Measurment Method:
Data collection method UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank group jointly review new data sources to update the country level estimates. Each agency uses their existing mechanisms for obtaining data. For UNICEF, the cadre of dedicated data and monitoring specialists working at national, regional and international levels in 190 countries routinely provide technical support for the collection and analysis of nutrition data. UNICEF also relies on a data source catalogue that is regularly updated using data sources from catalogues of other international organizations and national statistics offices. This data collection is done in close collaboration with UNICEF regional offices with the purpose of ensuring that UNICEF global databases contain updated and internationally comparable data. The regional office staff work with country offices and local counterparts to ensure the most relevant data are shared. WHO data gathering strongly relies on the organization’s structure and network established over the past 30 years, since the creation of its global database, the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, in the late 1980’s (de Onis et al. 2004). The World Bank Group provides estimates available through the Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS) which usually requires re-analysis of datasets given that the LSMS reports often do not tabulate the child malnutrition data.
Numerator:
Number of children aged 0–59 months who are wasted.
Denominator
Total number of children aged 0–59 months who were measured.
Estimation method:
Method of computation Survey estimates are based on standardized methodology using the WHO Child Growth Standards as described in Recommendations for data collection, analysis and reporting on anthropometric indicators in children under 5 years old (WHO/UNICEF 2019) and WHO Anthro Survey Analyser (WHO, 2019). Worldwide and regional estimates are based on methodology described in UNICEF-WHO-The World Bank: Joint child malnutrition estimates - Levels and trends (UNICEF/WHO/WB 2012).
Disaggregation:
Administrative regions, health regions, location (urban/rural), gender, age
Primary data sources:
Population based household surveys, specific population surveys, surveillance systems
Alternate data sources:
Population-based health surveys with nutrition modules, national surveillance systems
Measurment frequency:
Data sources are updated in a continuous base to feed into the annual production of global and regional estimates and updated country level dataset released every March
