Anemia remains a critical global public health concern and practical approaches to assessing anemia and its key determinants are required in both clinical and public health settings. To achieve global goals for anemia reduction, greater reliability, precision, and consistency of anemia assessment approaches are needed. Standardized approaches to assess anemia and its causes are essential to reliably assess progress on global goals for anemia reduction. The “Anemia Assessment” section provides a brief review of how to assess anemia based on hemoglobin concentrations cutoffs that correspond to age, sex, and physiologic status. The “Causes of Anemia” section discussed how to assess the likely causes of anemia in different settings.
The causes of anemia are broadly classified as non-nutritional (e.g., due to infection, inflammation, blood loss, or genetic disorders) or nutrition-specific (e.g., due to deficiencies in iron, vitamin A, riboflavin, vitamin B12, or folate). The section on “Using Survey Data for Program Decision Making” introduces a framework for assessing anemia in populations based on the “ecology of anemia”, which recognizes its many overlapping causes. We present a decision tree to inform the anemia-related data that researchers may need to collect in population-based surveys and a supporting table with information on how to collect them. We also describe an approach to interpret anemia risk factor data from population-based surveys that can inform decisions about context-specific interventions.
The USAID Advancing Nutrition Anemia Task force has developed five Anemia Briefs that explore current evidence and practice to understand and address the causes and consequences of anemia, and interventions to reduce the burden of disease. One of those briefs—"Anemia Assessment in Clinical and Public Health Settings”—explore issues related to the assessment of anemia.
We found 99 resource(s)
District Assessment Tool for Anemia (DATA)
Toolkit published by SPRING in
The District Assessment Tool for Anemia (DATA) is a generic toolkit that helps districts assess their current anemia situation. SPRING developed DATA to assist countries in strengthening anemia programming at the district level.
The Proportion of Anemia Associated with Iron Deficiency in Low, Medium, and High Human Development Index Countries: A Systematic Analysis of National Surveys
Systematic Review published by Nutrients in
This systematic review presents the prevalence of iron deficiency, iron deficiency anemia, and anemia among preschool children and nonpregnant women of reproductive age in 23 countries with a ranking of low, medium, or high in the Human Development Index. Data were pooled and the proportion of anemia attributable to iron deficiency was estimated…
Complementary Feeding Diets Made of Local Foods Can Be Optimized, but Additional Interventions Will Be Needed to Meet Iron and Zinc Requirements in 6- to 23-Month-Old Children in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Systematic Review published by Food and Nutrition Bulletin in
This systematic review assesses 1) whether macro- and micronutrient requirements of children aged 6–23 months in low- and middle-income countries are met by the consumption of locally available foods (‘‘observed intake’’) and 2) whether nutrient requirements can be met when optimizing the use of local foods, using modeling techniques (‘‘modeled…
Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency Anemia Using Density-Based Fractionation of Red Blood Cells
Journal Article published by Lab on a Chip in
This article describes a low-cost and rapid method to diagnose iron deficiency anemia using aqueous multiphase systems—thermodynamically stable mixtures of biocompatible polymers and salt that spontaneously form discrete layers having sharp steps in density.
Maternal Malaria and Malnutrition (M3) Initiative, a Pooled Birth Cohort of 13 Pregnancy Studies in Africa and the Western Pacific
Literature Review published by Maternal Malaria and Malnutrition initiative in
The Maternal Malaria and Malnutrition (M3) initiative has pooled data from 13 studies covering 8 countries in Africa and Papua New Guinea (from 1996 to 2015) with the goals of improving the understanding of malaria-nutrition interactions during pregnancy and fostering collaboration between nutritionists and malariologists. The dataset comprises…
Maternal Anemia and Risk of Adverse Birth and Health Outcomes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
published by American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in
This systematic review assesses the associations between maternal anemia adverse birth and health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. The review synthesizes evidence from 29 studies. Findings indicate that more than 40 percent of women experienced anemia during pregnancy in low- and middle-income countries and that 12 percent of low…
The Global Burden of Anemia
Literature Review published by Hematology/Oncology Clinics in
This article provides a framework for understanding the population-specific epidemiology and pathophysiology of anemia globally. The authors used the systematic approach of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2013 study to elucidate levels and trends of anemia-related disability. The study includes estimates of prevalence and…
The Proportion of Anemia Associated with Iron Deficiency in Low, Medium, and High Human Development Index Countries: A Systematic Analysis of National Surveys
Systematic Review published by Nutrients in
This article presents findings from a meta-analysis assessing the proportion of anemia that is attributable to iron deficiency. Data from 23 countries was pooled for pre-school children and non-pregnant women of reproductive age and the proportion of anemia attributable to iron deficiency was estimated by region, inflammation exposure, anemia…
Search this Toolkit
Share This
