MUAC Community Website

Here is an article on the use of arm muscle indicators to predict creatinine excretion in children. An interesting finding is that arm muscle measured my MUAC, or MUAC and triceps skin-fold, provides a useful index of body muscle in children.

Here is an article reviewing the role of muscle in health and disease (MUAC is a direct measure of muscle).

This article describes a MUAC/H reference and the construction of the WHO-modified QUAC stick.

Here is an article describing triceps skin-fold and MUAC in a large cross-sectional sample. A major finding is that, in children, measurements of muscularity such a MUAC reflect individual calories and protein reserves and may be used as general indices of nutritional status.

Here is an article describing the use of MUAC in the 1968 Nigerian Civil War ('Biafra Crisis') showing how surveys were used to map prevalence and target resources.

Mapping of the spatial distribution of malnutrition in similar detail has not been achieved using weight-for-height and two-stage cluster sampled surveys.

Here is short report by MSF (published in NEJM) about their 2005 Niger program. The article refers to the colour-banded MUAC strap as the "Bracelet of Life".

The attached files contain David L. Pelletier's 1994 review article of the relationship between child anthropometry and mortality in developing countries.

The attached article discusses the merits and demerits of different anthropometric indicators for detecting severely malnourished children for admission into therapeutic feeding programs.