Worldwide Prevalence of Anaemia 1993-2005 : WHO Global Database on Anaemia.

World Health Organization. (‎2008)‎. Worldwide prevalence of anaemia 1993-2005 : WHO global database on anaemia. / Edited by Bruno de Benoist, Erin McLean, Ines Egli and Mary Cogswell.

Anaemia is a public health problem that affects populations in both rich and poor countries. Although the primary cause is iron deficiency, it is seldom present in isolation. More frequently it coexists with a number of other causes, such as malaria, parasitic infection, nutritional deficiencies, and haemoglobinopathies.

Given the importance of this pathology in the world, numerous countries conduct interventions to reduce anaemia; particularly in the groups most susceptible to its devastating effects: pregnant women and young children. In order to assess the impact of these interventions, the adequacy of the strategies implemented, and the progress made in the fight against anaemia, information on anaemia prevalence must be collected. This is the primary objective of the WHO Global Database on Anaemia. However, estimates of anaemia prevalence by themselves are only useful if they
are associated with a picture of the various causal factors that contribute to the development of anaemia in specific settings. Indeed these factors are multiple and complex, and it is critical to collect accurate information about them to provide the basis for developing the best interventions for anaemia control.

In the last three decades, there have been various attempts to produce estimates of the prevalence of anaemia at different levels including at the global level, but until the present time, there has never been a systematic review of all of the data collected and published with the objective of deriving regional and global estimates. The WHO Global Database on Anaemia has filled this gap: data from 93 countries, representing as much as 76% of the population in the case of preschool-age children, were analysed and used to develop statistical models to generate national prevalence estimates for countries with no data within the time frame specified.

It is surprising that given the public health importance of anaemia, there are numerous countries lacking national prevalence data. Moreover, most survey data are related to the three population groups: preschool-age children, pregnant women, and non-pregnant women of reproductive age, which is why the report focuses on these groups

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