Africa Health Knowledge Management Portal
Informing Health Decisions and Actions
WHO child growth standards and the identification of severe acute malnutrition in infants and children
Health Systems
Maternal and Child Health
Description
Using weight-for-height: WHO and UNICEF recommend the use of a cut-off for weight-forheight of below -3 standard deviations (SD) of the WHO standards to identify infants and children as having SAM. The commonly used cut-off is the same cut-off for both the new 2006 WHO child growth standards (WHO standards) as with the earlier National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS reference). The reasons for the choice of this cut-off are as follows