Determining vitamin and mineral status in populations

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies continue to be a significant public health problem. This is particularly critical in developing countries where deficiencies to vitamin A, iron, iodine, and other micronutrients lead to adverse health consequences. Cross-sectional surveys are helpful in answering questions related to the magnitude and distribution of deficiencies of selected vitamins and minerals.

Our work on micronutrient surveys motivated us to develop an R package that aids in the processing and analysis of micronutrient biomarkers data taken during cross-sectional surveys. Our micronutr package has been released recently on CRAN. This package provides tools for determining select vitamin and mineral deficiencies based on World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines found here.

What does micronutr do?

The micronutr package provides tools for determining select vitamin and mineral deficiencies using R. Currently, micronutr has functions for:

• Detecting haemoglobinaemia or anaemia based on an individual’s serum haemoglobin level;

• Detecting inflammation status based on c-reactive protein (CRP) and alpha(1)-acid-glycoprotein (AGP);

• Detecting iron deficiency status based on an individual’s serum ferritin level;

• Detecting iodine deficiency status based on a population’s mean urinary iodine concentration.