Assessing Adequacy of Iodine Intake among Children from 6 Months to 15 Years of Age from Hilly Terrains of North India

Background: Routine outcome-based monitoring is required to assess the status of consumption of iodized salt as USI strategy. Objective: To assess the extent of recent iodine intake among children from 6 to 15 years of age in the hilly terrain of northern states of India. Methods: A school-based cross-sectional observational study among 227 children attending school was done for assessment of socio-demographic, dietary, salt consumption and urinary iodine concentration (UIC). Results: Mean age of children was about 6 years and 87.7% were consuming salt of >30 and none with <15 ppm iodine content. Median UIC was 138.0 μg/L. Among those assessed, 37.9% had adequate level of UIC, whereas about 20% and 40% participants had less (<99.0 μg/L) and more than adequate to excessive (≥200 μg/L) levels of UIC. Insignificant difference (p = 0.07) was observed for mean log UIC between cabbage eaters (2.3) and non-eaters (1.9) consuming salt >5 grams/day. Conclusion: Recent iodine intake among children observed to be inadequate and effect of cruciferous food items on UIC needs to be studied despite high coverage of iodized salt among children.