Between October 18–21, this website will move to a new web address (from health.gov to odphp.health.gov). During that time, some functions might not work as expected. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we’re working to make this transition as smooth as possible.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Reduce iron deficiency in females aged 12 to 49 years — NWS‑17 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), CDC/NCHS

Baseline: 11.0 percent of females aged 12 to 49 years had iron deficiency in 2015-16

Target: 7.2 percent

Numerator
Number of females aged 12 to 49 years with body iron less than 0.
Denominator
Number of females aged 12 to 49 years.
Target-setting method
Minimal statistical significance
Target-setting method details
Minimal statistical significance, assuming the same standard error for the target as for the baseline.
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were evaluated for this objective but it was not possible to project a target because the slope of the trend was not statistically significant. The standard error was used to calculate a target based on minimal statistical significance assuming the same standard error for the target as for the baseline. This method was used because it was a statistically significant improvement from the baseline.

Methodology

Methodology notes

Body iron is defined as follows: Body iron (mg/kg) = -[log10 (sTfR X1000/ferritin)-2.8229]/0.1207, where sTfR is serum transferrin receptor in milligrams per liter and ferritin is serum ferritin in micrograms per liter.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from Healthy People 2020 objective NWS-21.3 in that for the Healthy People 2020 trend, back calculations were applied for the 2009-2010 and 2015-2016 serum ferritin data to make them comparable to the 2005-2008 baseline data due to immunoassay and lab instrument changes, respectively, while no back calculations were performed for the 2015-2016 baseline data starting a new trend for Healthy People 2030.