The multi-ethnic global lung initiative 2012 and Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey reference values do not reflect spirometric measurements in Black boys and men from Tanzania.

The interpretation of spirometric results of Black Africans according to reference standards based on data from outside their native environment may lead to the wrong conclusions. This article aims to characterize the ventilatory capacity of boys and men from Tanzania according to forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1 ), forced vital capacity (FVC), peak expiratory flow (PEF) and FEV1 /FVC based on the collected anthropological material and to compare them to NHANES III, Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) African American predicted values and GLI2012 equations. The analysis included spirometric measurements of n = 295 participants from Tanzania. Pearson's correlation analysis and the backward stepwise multiple regression analysis were performed. FEV1 , FVC, PEF and FEV1 /FVC results were compared to the NHANES III African American predicted values as well as to the GLI2012 equations. FEV1 measurements are lower than the reference values according to NHANES III and GLI2012 equations by 22·1% and 25·8%. FVC results fell short of the NHANES III predicted by 29·5% and of GLI2012 by 32·5%. The average %FEV1 /FVC scores for the boys and men exceeded the recommended GLI2012 predicted by 10·5-15·2%. All the spirometric measurements included in the analysis were statistically significantly correlated with age, body height, sitting height, trunk length and body weight. The application of prediction formulae developed for non-African populations overestimates the values for Black Africans. The results of spirometric measurements are ecosensitive and dependent on various external (environmental) factors.