Does anthropometric status at 6 months predict the over-dispersion of malaria infections in children aged 6–18 months? A prospective cohort study

Table 3 Association of length-for-age, weight-for-length, and weight-for-age z-scores at age 6 months with prevalence of malaria parasitaemia at age 18 months

	Prevalence of malaria parasitaemia at age 18 months (N = 1662)^a
	Unadjusted		Adjusted^b
	PR^c (95% CI)	p-value	PR^c (95% CI)	p-value
Predictor at age 6 months
LAZ	0.82 (0.72 to 0.93)	0.003	1.11 (0.93 to 1.33)	0.259
WLZ	1.01 (0.88 to 1.16)	0.877	0.80 (0.67 to 0.94)	0.007
WAZ	0.85 (0.75 to 0.96)	0.007	0.88 (0.75 to 1.03)	0.115

CI: confidence interval; LAZ: length-for-age z-score; PR: prevalence ratio; WAZ: weight-for-age z-score; WLZ: weight-for-length z-score
^aPositive result from malaria microscopy readings
^bAdjusted for the following factors at age 6 months: sex of the child, haemoglobin concentration, iron status, month of birth, daily use of insecticide-treated bed nets, distance to health facility, study site, asset scores, maternal age, maternal education, children < 5 years, HFIA score, and whether the child received the study intervention (LNS) or not
^cPrevalence ratio, obtained using a modified Poisson regression (with a robust variance estimator) [29]. The PR represents the rate of change in prevalence of malaria parasitaemia for each 1-SD higher LAZ, WAZ, or WLZ

ISSN: 1475-2875