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

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 less than 11.5 g/dl. However, when these screen-positive infants were treated with oral iron for 3 months, the percentage who had a greater than or equal to 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.