Statistical Analysis of Human Growth and Development is an accessible and practical guide to a wide range of basic and advanced statistical methods that are useful for studying human growth and development. Designed for nonstatisticians and statisticians new to the analysis of growth and development data, the book collects methods scattered through

Statistical Analysis of Human Growth and Development is an accessible and practical guide to a wide range of basic and advanced statistical methods that are useful for studying human growth and development. Designed for nonstatisticians and statisticians new to the analysis of growth and development data, the book collects methods scattered throughout the literature and explains how to use them to solve common research problems. It also discusses how well a method addresses a specific scientific question and how to interpret and present the analytic results. Stata is used to implement the analyses, with Stata codes and macros for generating example data sets, a detrended Q-Q plot, and weighted maximum likelihood estimation of binary items available on the book’s CRC Press web page. After reviewing research designs and basic statistical tools, the author discusses the use of existing tools to transform raw data into analyzable variables and back-transform them to raw data. He covers regression analysis of quantitative, binary, and censored data as well as the analysis of repeated measurements and clustered data. He also describes the development of new growth references and developmental indices, the generation of key variables based on longitudinal data, and the processes to verify the validity and reliability of measurement tools. Looking at the larger picture of research practice, the book concludes with coverage of missing values, multiplicity problems, and multivariable regression. Along with two simulated data sets, numerous examples from real experimental and observational studies illustrate the concepts and methods. Although the book focuses on examples of anthropometric measurements and changes in cognitive, social-emotional, locomotor, and other abilities, the ideas are applicable to many other physical and psychosocial phenomena, such as lung function and depressive symptoms.

Human growth curve, canalization, and catch-up growth / Noël Cameron -- Growth in infancy and childhood : a pediatric approach / Horacio Lejarraga -- Adolescence : somatic growth and sex differences / Roland C. Hauspie -- Puberty / Peter T. Ellison -- Endocrinology of growth / Peter C. Hindmarsh -- The genetic epidemiology of growth and development / Bradford Towne, Ellen W. Demerath, and Stefan A. Czerwinski -- Nutrition and growth / Nicholas G. Norgan -- Environmental effects on growth / Lawrence M. Schell and Kristen L. Knutsen -- Social and economic influences on growth and secular trends / Francis E. Johnston -- Endocrine disorders of growth / John S. Parks -- Genetically determined growth disorders / Michael A. Preece -- Saltation and stasis / Michelle Lampl -- Body composition during growth and development / Babette Zemel -- The evolution of human growth / Barry Bogin -- Exercise and growth : physical activity as a factor in growth and maturation / Robert M. Malina -- The assess ...

Human Growth and Development pulls together information from leading experts in a variety of fields to create a one-volume resource on the human growth stages, environmental effects, and the research methods scientists should use. This text promises to be a great course-planning guide for instructors in various medical and scientific fields in addition to a thorough reference for further research. * Both biological and bio-medical approaches to human development. * Chapters on research methods of growth data collection. * Annotated reference lists for every chapter. * Tremendous breadth of knowledge within a single source.

One morning in 1969, out of the blue, I received a letter which both distressed and astonished me. It was from a Prof. S. R. Das in Calcutta, who requested me to accept, for eventual analysis, a mountain of anthropometric data he had accumulated, as he was ill and did not expect to survive to analyse it himself. The data provided the astonishment; twenty-two anthropometric characters recorded every six months or a year, over a period of 14 years, in a mixed longitudinal study of some 560 children, aged six months to twenty years. Most were in families with siblings also in the study, and every child was measured every time by S. R. Das himself. The archive was unique, combining the personal anthropometry of R. H. Whitehouse in the Harpenden Growth Study and the family approach of the Fels Growth Study. This was a study of which neither I, nor anyone of my acquaintance, had heard. Even in India, Prof. Das' work was scarcely known. It turned out Das was a scholarly man, quiet and unassuming, absolutely committed to his Sarsuna-Barisha Growth Study,just the obverse of the professional showman. Clearly this was not a request I could refuse, although I already had in hand enough projects to occupy Siva himself.

In order to gain an understanding of the dynamics of human individual and average growth patterns it is essential that the right methods are selected. There are a variety of methods available to analyse individual growth patterns, to estimate variation in different growth measures in populations and to relate genetic and environmental factors to individual and average growth. This volume provides an overview of modern techniques for the assessment and collection of growth data and methods of analysis for individual and population growth data. The book contains the basic mathematical and statistical tools required to understand the concepts of the methods under discussion and worked examples of analyses, but it is neither a mathematical treatise, nor a recipe book for growth data analysis. Aimed at junior and senior researchers involved in the analysis of human growth data, this book will be an essential reference for anthropologists, auxologists and paediatricians.

Tracing the history of studies of the physical growth of children from the time of the Ancient Greeks onwards.