Figure 1

Relationship between stunting and age in children with and without malaria episodes. Proportion of children stunted with increasing age stratified for b-globin genotypes HbAA (dots and solid line) and HbAS (crosses and dashed line). GEE analyses with adjustment for within-group, between-group effects and age-dependency were performed with autoregressive correlation structure of order 5 and assumption of binomial variable distribution. A, children without malaria episodes; no significant protective effect of HbAS (OR 0.84; CI 0.33–2.15; p = 0.71). B, children with at least one episode of malaria; 51% lower risk of stunting (OR 0.49; CI 0.25–0.93; p = 0.03).