Growth Failure Prediction in Chile

The purpose of this investigation was to develop screening instruments for the prediction of infants' growth failure. Biological and social variables of subjects attending public clinics in Santiago, Chile, were prospectively collected and screened as possible risk factors of being underweight/age at the end of the first year of life using three methodologies. Methodologies used were: simple relative risk, logistic regression, and classification and regression trees. As judged by sensitivity and specificity properties, the screening instrument developed by the latter methodology is much better than the other two.