RESEARCH ARTICLE
Comparison of the Nutritional Status of Overseas Refugee Children with Low Income Children in Washington State Elizabeth E. Dawson-Hahn1,2*, Suzinne Pak-Gorstein1,3, Andrea J. Hoopes4, Jasmine Matheson5 1 Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 2 Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 3 Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 4 Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, United States of America, 5 Refugee Health Program, Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shoreline, Washington, United States of America * [email protected]
OPEN ACCESS Citation: Dawson-Hahn EE, Pak-Gorstein S, Hoopes AJ, Matheson J (2016) Comparison of the Nutritional Status of Overseas Refugee Children with Low Income Children in Washington State. PLoS ONE 11 (1): e0147854. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147854 Editor: Marly Augusto Cardoso, University of São Paulo, BRAZIL
Abstract Introduction The extent that the dual burden of undernutrition and overnutrition affects refugee children before resettlement in the US is not well described.
Received: August 10, 2015
Objective
Accepted: January 8, 2016
To describe the prevalence of wasting, stunting, overweight, and obesity among refugee children ages 0–10 years at their overseas medical screening examination prior to resettlement in Washington State (WA), and to compare the nutritional status of refugee children with that of low-income children in WA.
Published: January 25, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Dawson-Hahn et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Our data cannot be made publicly available due to both ethical and legal restrictions. The data are protected by the Washington State Institutional Review Board. Data requests can be made directly to Jasmine Matheson MPH, the WA State Refugee Health Coordinator ([email protected]). Funding: Dr. Dawson-Hahn is supported by the National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service award, T32HP10002 (https://researchtraining.nih.gov/programs/traininggrants/T32), a grant from the Center for Diversity and Health Equity at Seattle Children’s Hospital (http://
Methods We analyzed anthropometric measurements of 1047 refugee children ages 0–10 years old to assess their nutritional status at the overseas medical screening examination prior to resettlement in WA from July 2012—June 2014. The prevalence estimates of the nutritional status categories were compared by country of origin. In addition, the nutritional status of refugee children age 0–5 years old were compared to that of low-income children in WA from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System.
Results A total of 982 children were eligible for the study, with the majority (65%) from Somalia, Iraq and Burma. Overall, nearly one-half of all refugee children had at least one form of malnutrition (44.9%). Refugee children ages 0–10 years were affected by wasting (17.3%), stunting
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0147854 January 25, 2016
1 / 13
Nutritional Status of Refugee Children
www.seattlechildrens.org/about/diversity/), and the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Econometrics and Programming Core stimulus funding of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute (http://www. seattlechildrens.org/research/). The Seattle Children's Research Institute received an honorarium from the Migration Policy Institute to develop and disseminate this research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(20.1%), overweight (7.6%) and obesity (5.9%). Among children 0–5 years old, refugee children had a significantly higher prevalence of wasting (14.3% versus 1.9%, p
Comparison of the Nutritional Status of Overseas Refugee Children with Low Income Children in Washington State Elizabeth E. Dawson-Hahn1,2*, Suzinne Pak-Gorstein1,3, Andrea J. Hoopes4, Jasmine Matheson5 1 Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 2 Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 3 Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 4 Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, United States of America, 5 Refugee Health Program, Office of Communicable Disease Epidemiology, Washington State Department of Health, Shoreline, Washington, United States of America * [email protected]
OPEN ACCESS Citation: Dawson-Hahn EE, Pak-Gorstein S, Hoopes AJ, Matheson J (2016) Comparison of the Nutritional Status of Overseas Refugee Children with Low Income Children in Washington State. PLoS ONE 11 (1): e0147854. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147854 Editor: Marly Augusto Cardoso, University of São Paulo, BRAZIL
Abstract Introduction The extent that the dual burden of undernutrition and overnutrition affects refugee children before resettlement in the US is not well described.
Received: August 10, 2015
Objective
Accepted: January 8, 2016
To describe the prevalence of wasting, stunting, overweight, and obesity among refugee children ages 0–10 years at their overseas medical screening examination prior to resettlement in Washington State (WA), and to compare the nutritional status of refugee children with that of low-income children in WA.
Published: January 25, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Dawson-Hahn et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Our data cannot be made publicly available due to both ethical and legal restrictions. The data are protected by the Washington State Institutional Review Board. Data requests can be made directly to Jasmine Matheson MPH, the WA State Refugee Health Coordinator ([email protected]). Funding: Dr. Dawson-Hahn is supported by the National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service award, T32HP10002 (https://researchtraining.nih.gov/programs/traininggrants/T32), a grant from the Center for Diversity and Health Equity at Seattle Children’s Hospital (http://
Methods We analyzed anthropometric measurements of 1047 refugee children ages 0–10 years old to assess their nutritional status at the overseas medical screening examination prior to resettlement in WA from July 2012—June 2014. The prevalence estimates of the nutritional status categories were compared by country of origin. In addition, the nutritional status of refugee children age 0–5 years old were compared to that of low-income children in WA from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System.
Results A total of 982 children were eligible for the study, with the majority (65%) from Somalia, Iraq and Burma. Overall, nearly one-half of all refugee children had at least one form of malnutrition (44.9%). Refugee children ages 0–10 years were affected by wasting (17.3%), stunting
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0147854 January 25, 2016
1 / 13
Nutritional Status of Refugee Children
www.seattlechildrens.org/about/diversity/), and the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Econometrics and Programming Core stimulus funding of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute (http://www. seattlechildrens.org/research/). The Seattle Children's Research Institute received an honorarium from the Migration Policy Institute to develop and disseminate this research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(20.1%), overweight (7.6%) and obesity (5.9%). Among children 0–5 years old, refugee children had a significantly higher prevalence of wasting (14.3% versus 1.9%, p
