In healthy individuals, the body regulates the oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells to meet physiological needs. New red blood cells are produced to replace circulating red blood cells as they reach the end of their approximately 120-day life span. Sufficient amounts of key nutrients are required to support the replacement of red blood cells at a rate of approximately 1 percent daily. Anemia results when the red blood cell oxygen-carrying capacity can no longer be maintained due to: inadequate red blood cell production; a reduction in the life span of red blood cells; increased blood
Anemia remains a critical global public health concern and practical approaches to assessing anemia and its key determinants are required in both clinical and public health settings. To achieve global goals for anemia reduction, greater reliability, precision, and consistency of anemia assessment approaches are needed. Standardized approaches to assess anemia and its causes are essential to reliably assess progress on global goals for anemia reduction. The “Anemia Assessment” section provides a brief review of how to assess anemia based on hemoglobin concentrations cutoffs that correspond to
Interventions for anemia prevention and control should incorporate an understanding of the biology as well as the assessment of the severity, magnitude, and prevalence of anemia in public health practice. The causes of anemia are multifactorial. Practitioners can address anemia using three main categories of interventions: 1) those that address non-nutritional causes of anemia (e.g., delayed cord clamping, malaria control, deworming); 2) those that address nutrients alone (e.g., dietary diversification, biofortification, food fortification, supplementation with iron and/or other