A validation study was conducted in the Maasai and Batemi communities of Arusha, Tanzania between December 1996 and January 1997. The aim of this study was to compare a participatory nutrition status assessment procedure carried out by community members with an assessment completed by a professional. The study validated women (15--50 years of age) dietary intake assessments and assessed the reliability of anthropometric assessments of preschool (12--71 months) children in the hands of non-professionals. The prevalence of under-nutrition was similar for the two data sets and reliability of anthropometric measurements was found to be good except for the mid-upper-arm circumference measurement for which the difference between measurements of the professional and the nonprofessional and between two occasions differed significantly (p < 0.001). Results suggest that participatory nutrition status assessment procedure by community members is useful and fairly reliable, giving results similar to a procedure administered by a professional for some anthropometric indices. The correlation between a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire administered by community members and a series of three 24-h recalls administered by a professional for assessing the risk of inadequate intake was found to be weak for vitamin A and protein but moderate for iron. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients between the mean of three 24-h recalls values and semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire estimates were 0.47 (p < 0.05) for iron, 0.29 (p < 0.05) for protein and 0.26 (p < 0.05) for vitamin A. The questionnaire produced results showing significantly higher intake estimates of protein (p < 0.001), vitamin A (p < 0.001) and iron (p < 0.01) than the average of three 24-hour recalls.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.21610 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Mselle, Laurent Sadikieli. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001657593, proquestno: MQ50841, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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