How to Calculating BMI with Age and Gender Considerations for Children Aged 5-17

Support - Assistance technique
1

Hello community,

I am looking to calculate BMI with consideration for age and gender for children aged 5 to 17 years. Is there a built-in function in DHIS2, similar to z-scores, that can handle this complexity? It appears that I need to assess multiple criteria like age and gender to obtain accurate results. Could you provide guidance on this?

my reference

2

Hi @rehabm

To begin with, you can easily create a program rule that calculates the BMI for each TEI. This calculation is basic and is important for the BMI-for-age (to the best of my understanding).

I will ask the team for further info, but some points I found while researching this.

Unfortunately, although I found (Z-Score weight for age indicator, Z-Score height for age indicator, and Z-Score weight for height indicator) program rule expressions, I couldn’t find an expression for BMI-for-age z-score.

Additionally, I think this is too complex for a program rule since there are a number of values (L, M, S, SD4neg, SD3neg, SD2neg, SD1neg, SD0, SD1, SD2, SD3, and SD4) which vary based on age by month and gender that are based on the WHO reference mentioned in the link you provided.

My initial suggestion is to make sure to calculate the necessary data regardless of whether the calculation is possible now i.e. age by month and gender.

I hope we’ll get further input from the community as well. Thanks! :pray:

1 Like
3

Thanks for your support. I appreciate your efforts! I agree that this may be too complex for a program rule.I am looking forward to receiving further information.

1 Like