WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition
Data search tool for exploring child malnutrition statistics
Established in 1986, the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition compiles, standardizes, and disseminates child anthropometric data of nutrition surveys conducted globally based in the WHO Child Growth Standards, and, since 2012, it profits from the UNICEF-WHO-WB Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME) collaboration.
The WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition includes population-based surveys that fulfil a set of minimum data quality criteria. Data are checked for validity and consistency and raw data sets are analysed following a standard procedure to obtain comparable results, based on the prevalences below and above-defined cut-off points for four anthropometric indexes, namely weight-for-height, height-for-age, weight-for-age and body mass index (BMI)-for-age, in preschool children are presented using z-scores based on the WHO Child Growth Standards. Since 2012, WHO joined efforts with UNICEF and the World Bank to gather data from countries, enhance the data quality criteria and the end-to-end data process based on standard methodology, including the re-analysis and review of a large number of surveys to improve comparability across countries and types of surveys. New surveys are included on a continuous basis as final reports become available and results are standardized. A detailed description of the methodology and procedures of the database including data sources, criteria for inclusion, data quality control and database work-flow, are described in a paper published in 2003 in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The inclusion criteria were since 2019 improved based on the Recommendations for data collection, analysis and reporting on anthropometric indicators in children under 5 years old, developed within the UNICEF-WHO Technical Expert Advisory Group on Nutrition Monitoring (TEAM). In addition to nationally representative surveys identified by the JME group, the WHO global database includes also regional surveys that meet the minimum data quality criteria.
The global database includes levels of uncertainty around survey estimates, distribution cut-offs in additional to those related to most used indicators of the four anthropometric indexes, and stratifications by sex, age, type of residence and geographical regions, wealth quintile and mother’s education. The new data adheres to GATHER.
"We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being
made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow’, his name is ‘Today’."
- Gabriela Mistral, 1948
Database
The database lays in the WHO common data warehousing platform XMART. A web-based tool was developed as an interface to improve user-friendliness. It enables users to search for country, year, sex or type of residence(area). It offers two options for downloading
the data: Short format, including prevalence estimates for the five main indicators (severe wasting, wasting, overweight, stunting and underweight), or the Expanded format, which includes all cut-offs for each of the anthropometric indexes (weight-for-height,
height-for-age, weight-for-age and BMI-for age), as well as measures of accuracy (estimates standard errors and 95% confidence intervals). The Short format includes stratification by sex, age group, type of residence and geographical regions or sub-populations,
while the Expanded format includes wealth quintiles and mother’s education in addition to those in the Short format.
The search will take you to the various options for filtering the data, choose between Short or Expanded format, and output on the screen or directly in Excel format.
Software
The WHO Anthro Survey Analyser is used to facilitate re-running of nutritional survey data based on a standardized approach. It aims to promote best practices on data collection, analyses and reporting of anthropometric indicators based on the Recommendations for data collection, analysis and reporting on anthropometric indicators in children under 5 years old.
Acknowledgements
The WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition was established in 1986 as an international effort to standardize child growth data. Throughout its 25+ years of existence, the global database has to be regarded as a success story of international collaboration. The Department of Nutrition for Health and Development is indebted for the support of countless individuals, institutions, governments, and non-governmental and international organizations for their continual collaboration in maintaining this database.
First and foremost, we thank you the parents and children who participated in the numerous nutritional studies that form the basis of the global database. A special note of appreciation goes as well to Dr Mercedes de Onis, the founder and architect of the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, and to Ms Monika Blössner for her dedication over many years to the maintenance of the database.
We are also grateful to all those who provided standardized information and reanalyses of data sets to conform to the database requirements. We thank the collaborators who developed codes in various software packages to align with the standardized analyses of the database, as well as those who analysed countless data sets to obtain comparative and comprehensive results in the required format of the database. We would like to particularly mention Dr Allen Shoemaker and UNICEF staff from the Data and Analytics, Division of Data, Research and Policy, in special Richard Kumapley, for re-analysing large numbers of surveys in the expanded format following the harmonized methodology. We also thank the International Center for Equity in Health, who worked closely with WHO on the application of the methodology for complex survey sample analyses and analysed large numbers of surveys with financial support from the World Bank.
In 2017 the global database was moved to the WHO generic data management system XMart and is currently housed in the Global Health Observatory for easy access and download. We are most grateful to our colleagues who facilitated this move. In particular, we would like to thank Amir Naïmi, who created the database original software system and provided technical support to the migration of the database to XMart; our WHO colleagues from the Global Health Observatory group, John Christopher Rawlinson and Phillipe Jean-Pierre Boucher, for their continuous and unconditional support on the transition and maintenance of the database and from the Information Management Technology department Dorothy Leonor. Our thanks also go to John Shannon, from The Coroico Group, which developed the interface Web tool.
Finally, our gratitude goes to Dr Elaine Borghi for ensuring the accuracy of the methodology of the re-analysis and estimates and for overseeing the migration of the database between systems; and to Monica Crissel Flores-Urrutia for her work on the implementation of the transition of the database to the new system, as well as for data standardization and web application validation.
Publications
The following summary papers and documents have been published based on this WHO Global Database:
- Prevalence and trends of stunting among pre-school children, 1990–2020
Public Health Nutrition 2012;15:142-8. - Global prevalence and trends of overweight and obesity among preschool children
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2010;92:1257–64. - Worldwide timing of growth faltering: Revisiting implications for interventions
Pediatrics 2010;125;e473-e480. - Algorithms for converting estimates of child malnutrition based on the NCHS reference into estimates based on the WHO Child Growth Standards
BMC Pediatrics 2008, 8:19 (05 May 2008)
(http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/8/19). - Undernutrition as an underlying cause of child deaths associated with diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and measles
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2004;80:193-8. - Is malnutrition declining? An analysis of changes in levels of child malnutrition since 1980
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2000;78:1222-33. - Comparison of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards and the National Center for Health Statistics/WHO international growth reference: implications for child health programmes
Public Health Nutrition 2006;9:942-7. - Malnutrition: Quantifying the health impact at national and local levels
Environmental Burden of Disease Series, No. 12. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2005. - Methodology for estimating regional and global trends of child malnutrition
International Journal of Epidemiology 2004;33:1260-70. - Estimates of global prevalence of childhood underweight in 1990 and 2015
JAMA 2004;291:2600-6. - The World Health Organization Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition: methodology and applications
International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:518-26. - Selected major risk factors and global and regional burden of disease
Lancet 2002; 360: 1347–60. - Worldwide timing of growth faltering: Implications for nutritional interventions
Pediatrics 2001;107(5):E75. - Prevalence and trends of overweight among preschool children in developing countries
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2000;72:1032-9. - The worldwide magnitude of protein-energy malnutrition: an overview from the WHO Global Database on Child Growth
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 1993;71:703-12. - Estimating Childhood Stunting and Overweight Trends in the European Region from Sparse Longitudinal Data.
J Nutr. 2022 Jul; 152(7): 1773–1782.
Related links
For general questions or more information about this data portal, please contact NFSDATA@who.int.