Abstract—Background: Uttarakhand state is a known endemic to iodine deficiency. Objective: to assess the current iodine nutritional status amongst School Age Children (6-12 years) in districts: Udham Singh Nagar (USN), Nainital (N) and Pauri (P) of Uttarakhand state, India. Materials and Methods: Thirty clusters from each district were selected by utilizing the population proportionate to size cluster sampling methodology. A total of 6143 School Age Children (SAC) from USN (1807), N (2269) and P (2067) were included. The clinical examination of the thyroid of each child was conducted. Urine and salt samples were collected from a sub samples of SAC enlisted for thyroid clinical examination. Results: The Total Goiter Rate (TGR) were found to be 13.2 (USN), 15.9 (N) and 16.8 (P) percent. The median Urinary Iodine Concentration (UIC) levels were found to be 150μg/L (USN), 125μg/L (N) and 115μg/L (P), respectively. The percentage of SAC consuming salt with iodine content of 15ppm and more was found to be 46.7 (USN), 57.7 (N) and 40.4 (P) percent. Conclusion: The findings of the present study revealed that the SAC in all three districts had adequate iodine nutritional status as revealed by median UIC level of more than 100μg/L. 
 

Index Terms—iodine, total goiter rate, urinary iodine concentration level, Uttarakhand, India

Cite: Neha Sareen, Umesh Kapil, and Vanisha Nambiar, "Current Iodine Nutritional Status amongst School Age Children in Uttarakhand, India," International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 139-142, December 2015. doi: 10.18178/ijfe.1.2.139-142