ABSTRACT
In Trinidad and Tobago, the Health Centre data base is inadequate to determine nutritional status of children under 5 years of age. However, nutritional status of children now entering primary school (4-6 years old) was expected to more accurately reflect the nutritonal history of children 0-4 years of age. Established anthropometric techniques and WHO recommendations for interpretation and presentation of such data were used in the study. A stratified randomized sample of children attending their first year at primary school was selected. Overall, 7.1 percent of 3,417 children were undernourished or wasted (>-2SD from median weight-for-height), while on the basis of height-for-age, 2.7 percent were stunted. Applying the correction factor recommended by WHO gave a "true" prevalence of wasting of 4.8 percent and of stunting of 0.48 percent. However, there were two area-pockets of chronic undernutrition/social deprivation where the "true" and 3.4 prevalence of wasting was 10.7 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively, and the "true" prevalence of stunting was 2.1 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. First-year primary school children in Trinidad and Tobago are subject to short-term undernutrition which is more serious in some areas of the country than in others and more frequent among children 6 years of age and older (AU)