PEDIATRICS Vol. 80 No. 3 September 1987, pp. 439-441
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Has Routine Screening of Infants for Anemia Become Obsolete in the United States?

PETER R. DALLMAN MD1

1 Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco

Iron deficiency anemia was common and often severe as recently as 15 years ago in the United States.1 During that period, it had become a well-established routine to evaluate all term infants for anemia at about 1 year of age2; screening at the preschool checkup and in adolescence also became widespread.

Declining Prevalence of Iron Deficiency Anemia

During the past decade, iron deficiency anemia has become less and less common.1,3 The first strong evidence of a relatively low nationwide prevalence of anemia was provided by the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) conducted between 1976 and 1980.4 In that large, representative sampling of the US population, only about 6% of adolescent girls between 15 and 17 years of age were anemic.4