Screening for anemia in infants: evidence in favor of using identical hemoglobin criteria for blacks and Caucasians

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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the need for separate Hb screening criteria according to race by evaluating the Hb response to a therapeutic trial of iron in 1-yr-old infants. Among the 1128 infants who were screened, a significantly larger percentage of blacks (37%) than Caucasians (22%) had a Hb <11.5 g/dl. However, when these screen-positive infants were treated with oral iron for 3 months, the percentage who had a ≥1 g/dl response was similar in blacks (38%) and Caucasians (35%). Our results indicated that a slight but significant inherent tendency to lower Hb values among the black infants was counter-balanced by a substantially higher prevalence of iron deficiency anemia. These findings are in favor of using uniform Hb screening criteria in similar populations.