Using Soluble Transferrin Receptor and Taking Inflammation into Account When Defining Serum Ferritin Cutoffs Improved the Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency in a Group of Canadian Preschool Inuit Children from Nunavik

Table 2

Demographic and clinical characteristics of preschool Inuit children with or without a Hb test.

Characteristics	With a Hb test	Without a Hb test
Age (months)	24.6 (9.8) ()	25.0 (9.5) ()	0.64
Sex (% male)	52.2 ()	52.3 ()	0.99
Coast of residence (% Hudson)^‡	52.8 ()	55.4 ()	0.72
Any breastfeeding
Ever breastfed (% yes)	70.8 ()	70.8 ()	0.99
Breastfeeding duration (months)^§	7.0 (2.5–15.0) ()	6.2 (2.0–15.0) ()	0.58
Maternal age during pregnancy (years)	23.7 (5.2) ()	23.7 (5.7) ()	0.74
Supplement use during pregnancy (% yes)	81.3 ()	82.5 ()	0.85
Respondent education level (secondary completed or more (%))	37.8 ()	44.6 ()	0.43
Respondent working status (% working)^||	83.9 ()	81.5 ()	0.66

Values are given as arithmetic means (±SD) or percentages unless otherwise specified.
180 participants had a Hb test, while 65 had none. Some characteristics, namely, breast feeding status, maternal age, and supplement use during pregnancy, were not available for all the children.
^†Differences were assessed using a Wilcoxon rank-sum test for continuous variables, chi-square statistics for categorical variables, and the median two-sample test for breastfeeding duration.
^‡Nunavik occupies a third of the province of Quebec (Canada) north of the 55th parallel and is bordered by the Ungava Bay (east), Hudson Strait (north), and Hudson Bay (west).
Breastfeeding duration in breastfed children. Duration was equal to the child’s age for children who were still breastfed at the time of the interview. Median (IQR: interquartile range).
The respondent for the child at the time of the interview was the biological mother (78.8%, ) or father (2.8%, ), the adoptive mother (15.5%; ), the foster mother (2.4%, ), or the foster father (0.4%, ).