INTRODUCTION:

The Buenos Aires municipality of Pila lacked adequate indicators to monitor child health in the population. The objective was to incorporate positive indicators based on physical growth and psychomotor development in children aged 0 to 5.99 years.

METHODS:

The entire target population was summoned to kindergartens and primary care centers (with parental consent). Trained health personnel measured weight, supine length/height and administered 13 developmental items taken from the National Reference (NR). Medians of anthropometric data were obtained with LMS method; the age of attainment of items was estimated with logistic regression and the fit was assessed with the Hosmer-Lemeshow test. Developmental index (DI) was calculated with linear regression of differences between children’s attainment ages and those of the NR, and the ages of the NR.

RESULTS:

Of 321 children, 307 (95.6% of the total; 169 girls) were evaluated. Height curves were similar to those of the World Health Organization and updated Argentine curves (z-scores did not significantly differ from zero); weight and body mass index curves showed moderate overweight: z = 0.38±0.07 standard deviation. No significant sex differences were found. Based on the 6 items that showed a good fit, the DI was 89.

DISCUSSION:

The method was successfully implemented. Pila has now a baseline for annual monitoring of children’s health.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )