Use and interpretation of hemoglobin concentrations for assessing anemia status in individuals and populations: results from a WHO technical meeting

Anemia is an important public health problem that negatively affects health of individuals and economic potential of populations. An accurate case definition is critical for understanding burden and epidemiology of anemia, for planning public health interventions, and for clinical investigation and...

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Published inAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences Vol. 1450; no. 1; pp. 5 - 14
Main Authors Garcia‐Casal, Maria Nieves, Pasricha, Sant‐Rayn, Sharma, Andrea J., Peña‐Rosas, Juan Pablo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.08.2019
Subjects
Anemia
Anemia - blood
Anemia - diagnosis
Clinical significance
Diagnosis
Epidemiology
Global Health
Hemoglobin
Hemoglobins - analysis
Humans
Populations
Public health
Scientific papers
technical meeting
thresholds
World Health Organization
thresholds
technical meeting
clinical significance
anemia
hemoglobin
public health
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Summary:Anemia is an important public health problem that negatively affects health of individuals and economic potential of populations. An accurate case definition is critical for understanding burden and epidemiology of anemia, for planning public health interventions, and for clinical investigation and treatment of patients. The current threshold hemoglobin concentrations for diagnosis of anemia were proposed in 1968 and based on studies predominantly of Caucasian adult populations in Europe and North America. The World Health Organization is undertaking a project to review global guidelines for anemia. We describe the process of obtaining input from technical experts, researchers, blood bank experts, policy makers, and program implementers to identify key information or knowledge gaps for anemia diagnosis. From this scoping exercise, six priority areas were identified on diverse topics related to the use and interpretation of hemoglobin concentrations to diagnose anemia in individuals and populations. A call for authors was conducted to produce background, review, and research papers across priority topics. This paper summarizes the first technical meeting, which included commissioned papers as well as case studies, describes key data gaps identified, and describes the next steps in the guideline development process to assess available evidence and define knowledge gaps to improve anemia characterization.
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ISSN:0077-8923
1749-6632
DOI:10.1111/nyas.14090