Iron deficiency and anemia appear to be an important public health problem among children less than 5 years old at public daycare centers in Recife. Therefore, effective actions aimed at the prevention and control of this deficiency are strongly recommended in this ecological context.

Objective: To assess nutritional iron status and anemia prevalence in children less than 5 years old at public daycare centers in the city of Recife, PE, Brazil. Methods:A cross-sectional study, with a systematic random sampling of 162 children aged 6 to 59 months.Nutritional iron status was assessed in terms of body iron reserves (serum ferritin), transferrinemia (serum iron, total iron binding capacity, and transferrin saturation %), erythropoiesis (free erythrocyte protoporphyrin) and hemoglobin production (hemoglobin). Results:The prevalence of anemia (hemoglobin < 11.0 g/dL) was 55.6% (95%CI 47.3-63.5), evidence was found of depleted iron stocks (serum ferritin < 12.0 ng/mL) in 30.8% (95%CI 22.9-39.3), low transferrinemia levels (transferrin saturation % < 16) in 60.1% (95%CI 51.7-68.0) and deficient erythropoiesis (free erythrocyte protoporphyrin > 40 µmol/mol heme) in 69.6% (95%CI 61.0-77.1) of the children. Iron parameters were not correlated with sex (p > 0.05). However, children < 24 months exhibited lower hemoglobin concentrations (p < 0.00) and higher levels of free erythrocyte protoporphyrin (p < 0.000) and total iron binding capacity (p < 0.001) when compared with children > 24 months. The significant correlation observed between reserves, transferrinemia and erythropoiesis is a finding that is compatible with the expected lifecycle of iron in the body. Conclusions:Iron deficiency and anemia appear to be an important public health problem among children less than 5 years old at public daycare centers in Recife. Therefore, effective actions aimed at the prevention and control of this deficiency are strongly recommended in this ecological context. (Rio J). 2007;83(4):370-376 Anemia, iron deficiency, hemoglobin, serum ferritin, serum iron, total iron binding capacity, transferrin saturation, free erythrocyte protoporphyrin, preschool children. J Pediatr

RR cannot be estimated, since it is the possibility of calculating prevalence, and not incidence. 4 Another important aspect verified was that the 95%CI of estimators used was not published. In our opinion, their visualization is of great help in a proper analysis of results, because it allows estimating adequacy of sample size and verifying statistical significance of the association, besides being an extra aspect when searching for causal inference.We hope to have contributed with our observations and suggest that, in studies of that nature, preference is given to estimation of strength of association by PR, always showing its 95%CI. Therefore, applicability and interpretation of statistical tools used in epidemiological studies are adequate to their purposes.We stress the importance of that article and reinforce that reported inadequacies do not diminish the merit, nor invalidate results; presentation forms only need to be corrected.