Correlation of haemoglobin with body mass index in children from an indigenous ecuadorian community

Authors

  • Carlos Castañeda Guillot
  • Kenia Peñafiel Jaramillo
  • Karen Aracelly Tobar Almendariz

Keywords:

Haemoglobin, Body Mass Index, children, indigenous community, Spearman correlation

Abstract

Introduction: Diverse indigenous communities around the world face particular challenges in terms of access to nutritious food, adequate health care and socio-economic conditions.

Objective: The objective of the study was to identify whether haemoglobin is related to Body Mass Index (BMI) in children from an indigenous community in the Sierra region of Ecuador.

Methods: The study was conducted in the period 2018-2019. It was prospective, observational, cross-sectional, and analytical, corresponding to the level of relational research. The set of participants in this study consisted of 388 children, whose ages ranged between 5 and 12 years. Spearman's correlation test was chosen instead of Pearson's correlation test because the BMI data and haemoglobin levels did not show a normal distribution, as previously evidenced by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.

Results: BMI showed a range between 12.3 and 33.4, with a mean of 17.42 and a standard deviation of 2.22. Spearman's correlation test between haemoglobin and BMI revealed an extremely low correlation coefficient of 0.011, with a significance of 0.824. This p-value was considerably above the 5 % statistical significance level (0.05), suggesting that there was insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis (H0).

Conclusions:  It is concluded that, in this sample studied, there was no significant correlation between Haemoglobin levels and BMI in children from the indigenous community of the Sierra region in Ecuador.

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Published

2023-12-20

How to Cite

1.
Castañeda Guillot C, Peñafiel Jaramillo K, Tobar Almendariz KA. Correlation of haemoglobin with body mass index in children from an indigenous ecuadorian community. Rev Cubana Inv Bioméd [Internet]. 2023 Dec. 20 [cited 2025 Sep. 20];42(2). Available from: https://revibiomedica.sld.cu/index.php/ibi/article/view/3149