Validity of self-reported versus actual age in Nepali children and young people

Public Health. 2016 Aug:137:185-7. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2016.02.014. Epub 2016 Apr 20.

¹ Institute for Global Health, University College London, UK. Electronic address: m.heys@ucl.ac.uk.
² Department of Paediatrics Bristol Royal Infirmary, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust, UK.
³ Institute for Global Health, University College London, UK; Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (MCA), World Health Organization, Switzerland.
⁴ Mother and Infant Research Activities (MIRA), Nepal.
⁵ Institute of Child Health, University College London, UK.

Abstract

•
Self-reported age is a potential source of misclassification bias in International Surveys.
•
We compare objectively recorded age with self-reported age at mean age 11.5 years in 3943 children in rural Nepal.
•
There was high agreement between actual and self-reported age with an error rate of 7%.