Child Malnutrition: Joint Country Dataset (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank Group) (March 2020)

Before conducting trend analyses of child nutritional status, it is important to ensure that estimates from various data sources are comparable over time. For example, household surveys in some countries in the early 1990s only collected child anthropometry information among children up to 47 months of age – or even up to only 35 months of age. Prevalence estimates based on such data only referred to children under 4 or under 3 years of age and are not comparable to prevalence estimates based on data collected from children up to 59 months of age. Some age adjustment needs to be applied to make these estimates based on non-standard age groups comparable to those based on the standard age range. For more information about age adjustment, please click here to read a technical note. In addition, prevalence estimates need to be calculated according to the same reference population. Those calculated according to the WHO Child Growth Standards are not comparable to those calculated according to the NCHS/WHO reference population.

Country-level progress in reducing undernutrition prevalence is evaluated by calculating the average annual rate of reduction (AARR) and comparing this to the AARR needed in order to be able to reduce prevalence by half over 25 years.

For more information visit: https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/malnutrition/