Dear :

it depends on the target group you need to measure MUAC if its 6-59 age group children with Women at reproductive age groups or PLW MUAC you can USE ENA for SMART Late version July 9/2015 software. just click on this links
https://smartmethodology.org/about-smart/

for school going children 5 - 19 years.

There is not an accepted standard z score reference for MUAC for age for 5 to 19y.

However, we recently published one and validated it as a predictor of mortality in 2 cohorts in Africa, it performed well, better than BMI in one of the cohorts and just as well as BMI in the other. See: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/358/bmj.j3423.full.pdf

We are working on a calculator software for it at the moment. The curves and tables are:

GIRLS: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/suppl/2017/08/03/bmj.j3423.DC1/mral036206.wf1.pdf

BOYS: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/suppl/2017/08/03/bmj.j3423.DC1/mral036206.wf2.pdf

TABLES FOR Z SCORES AND PERCENTILES: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/suppl/2017/08/03/bmj.j3423.DC1/mral036206.ww1.pdf (at the end of this document)

If you already have a set of data (age, sex, MUAC), we could calculate the z scores for you while we are finishing the software. For real-time use the tables will be fine.

Please note this is not endorsed by WHO. However, the WHO growth standards dataset was used at the younger ages so it almost exactly matches WHO at age 5.

Hope thjat's helpful

Jay

Hi Jay,

Thank you for sharing the MUAC-for-age reference values that you and your colleagues generated.

If anyone is interested in estimating z-scores using Jay's reference values, it can be done in Excel using the LMSgrowth add-in created by Huiqi Pan and Tim Cole. The add-in can be accessed in the following link.

Hi Jay,

Thank you for sharing the MUAC-for-age reference values that you and your colleagues generated.

If anyone is interested in estimating z-scores using Jay's reference values, it can be done in Excel using the LMSgrowth add-in created by Huiqi Pan and Tim Cole. The add-in can be accessed in the following link.

Make sure to follow the instructions to set up the add-in in Excel. Afterwards, download this excel spreadsheet that I created and place it in the XLSTART folder.

To locate the XLSTART folder in Windows, try typing into the address bar of File Explorer (replacing what is there):
%appdata%\microsoft\excel\xlstart
and press Enter

The above will only allow you to estimate z-scores using Excel. It is worth re-stating that this procedure is not endorsed by WHO.

I hope the above is useful.

The NiPN data quality toolkit provides an R language function addWGSR() that calculates a range of anthropometric z-scores and adds them to survey data:

• Weight-for-length (wfl) z-scores for children with lengths between 45 and 110 cm

• Weight-for-height (wfh) z-scores for children with heights between 65 and 120 cm

• Length-for-age (lfa) z-scores for children aged less than 24 months

• Height-for-age (hfa) z-scores for children aged between 24 and 228 months

• Weight-for-age (wfa) z-scores for children aged between zero and 120 months

• Body mass index-for-age z-scores (bfa) for children aged between zero and 228 months

• MUAC-for-age (mfa) z-scores for children aged between 3 and 60 months

• Triceps skinfold-for-age (tsa) z-scores for children aged between 3 and 60 months

• Sub-scapular skinfold-for-age (ssa) z-scores for children aged between 3 and 60 months

• Head circumference-for-age (hca) z-scores for children aged between zero and 60 months

The z-scores are calculated using the WHO Child Growth Standards (2006a, 2006b) for children aged between zero and 60 months or the WHO Growth References (2007) for school-aged children and adolescents.

I use this function for all anthropometric work. Similar functions are available for SAS, SPSS, STATA, &c. and stand-alone software can be downloaded from the WHO website.

I hope this is of some use.

The references are:

WHO (2006a). WHO Child Growth Standards. Length/height-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass index-for-age. Methods and development, World Health Organization, Geneva.

WHO (2006b). WHO Child Growth Standards. Head circumference-for-age, arm circumference-for-age, triceps skinfold-for-age, and subscapular skinfold-for-age. Methods and development, World Health Organization , Geneva.

de Onis M, Onyango AW, Borghi E, Siyam A, Nishida C, Siekmann J (2007). Development of a WHO growth reference for school-aged children and adolescents, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 85: 660-7

Thanks Carlos, that's super useful to be able to do it in excel

Jay

Thank you Carlos,
This is very helpfull

Just an FYI ... The R langage functions to add z-scores using the WHO standard and WHO references (older children) have be wrapped up in the zcorer package. Thank to Ernest at VALID measures for doing this.