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Biomedical subjects

S Chinn

Publications and source records attributed to S Chinn.

207 records · Page 12Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

National Study of Health and Growth: social and biological factors associated with height of children from ethnic groups living in England.

A new surveillance system was initiated on selected growth and nutritional characteristics of children living in inner-city areas and children from ethnic minorities. The heights of Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Pakistani children in this study were compared with those of children in an existing surveillance study, who were chosen to be representative of the English population. Data for this representative sample were collected in 1982 and for the ethnic groups in inner city areas in 1983. The analysis included 13,107 boys and girls aged 5-11 years. Very large differences in height were detected between ethnic groups. The Afro-Caribbean children were the tallest, on average around 3.5 cm taller than the 1982 sample, while the Gujarati children were the shortest, on average about 3 cm below the 1982 sample. Adjustment for a large set of biological and social variables did not eliminate differences in height between ethnic groups. This would indicate that the use of British standards of height based on Caucasian children to assess growth of a child of another ethnic group in England should be interpreted with caution. Multiple regression analyses by ethnic group revealed differences in the pattern of associations between height and social and biological factors among groups. Generalizations from findings in one ethnic group to another in England are not appropriate.

Body Weight↗
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National Study of Health and Growth: social and biological factors associated with weight-for-height and triceps skinfold of children from ethnic groups in England.

Baseline results of weight-for-height and triceps skinfold for a sample of Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Pakistani children living in inner-city areas are given and compared with children in an existing surveillance study representative of the English population. The data collected in 1982 for the representative sample and in 1983 for the ethnic groups gave useful information on 13,073 children in the age-range 5-11 years. The Afro-Caribbean children had a similar weight-for-height to the Caucasian children but they were thinner than the Caucasians in terms of triceps skinfold thickness. Indo-Pakistani children were lighter than any other group in the study. Indo-Pakistani boys had a higher triceps skinfold thickness in relation to NSHG standards than the girls. The Caucasian children in inner-city areas were consistently more obese than the Caucasian children in the representative sample. However, in a set of multiple regression analyses the independent social factors explained a minimal percentage of the variation of weight-for-height and triceps skinfold. Ethnic origin and parents' weight and height were most highly associated with child's weight-for-height and triceps skinfold. The results highlight our limited knowledge of factors influencing obesity in childhood and point out the large differences of weight-for-height and triceps skinfold related to ethnic origin in the UK.

Arm↗
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Secular trends in weight, weight-for-height and triceps skinfold thickness in primary schoolchildren in England and Scotland from 1972 to 1980.

Measurements of height, weight and triceps skinfold thickness were obtained from English and Scottish schoolchildren from 15 birth cohorts over the period 1972-1980. Positive trends in weight were found for boys and girls in both countries, but in England they were less than expected from the increases in height. The increase in weight-for-height in Scotland was paralleled by a greater increase in triceps skinfold in Scottish than in English children. Scottish children remained shorter, lighter and thinner than English children, but similar in weight-for-height. Separate monitoring of trends in obesity for English and Scottish children should continue.

Body Height↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mixed longitudinal studies: their efficiency for the estimation of trends over time.

Mixed longitudinal studies may be employed for the estimation of trends over time because they give more comparable data than a series of cross-sectional studies, or because of multiple objectives. The estimation of trends from such studies is an example of their use for a cross-sectional rather than longitudinal objective, for which the appropriate analysis is different from that usually described for the analysis of longitudinal data. The efficiency of mixed longitudinal studies for measuring trends in measurements, such as height and weight relative to a comparable series of cross-sectional studies, is calculated for various designs, percentage follow-up and correlation between measurements on the same subjects. The relative efficiency was over 0.8 for most designs and sometimes greater than 1.0. It generally decreased as the number of surveys increased, but increased as the difference between age groups studied increased.

Age Factors↗
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The validity of reported parental height in inner city areas in England.

The validity of self-reported height was assessed in a sample of Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Caucasian parents. Asian mothers overestimated their height (p less than 0.01) and Caucasian mothers overestimated that of their child's father. The standard deviations of the differences between reported and measured height, with the exception of Caucasian mothers, were large (between 4.33 cm and 11.18 cm). It is concluded that self-reported height from subjects living in inner city areas in Britain should be interpreted with great caution.

Africa↗
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The secular trend in height of primary school children in England and Scotland 1972-79 and 1979-86.

The recent secular trend in height of primary school children was estimated using data from schools participating in the National Study of Health and Growth in 1972, 1979 and 1986. About 50% of the trends from 1972 to 1979 for English and Scottish boys and girls were accounted for by changes in family size, with some contribution from increases in parental height and from birthweight, but almost none from changes in social class distribution. Estimates for 1979-1986 showed that the trend towards increased height in five-to eleven-year-old children has now ceased.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Father's unemployment and height of primary school children in Britain.

In a nutritional surveillance system of 5-11-year-old children the association between father's employment status and his child's height, weight-for-height and their rates of change over 2 years were assessed. The study was carried out in three samples: quasi-representative English sample 1984-86; quasi-representative Scottish samples 1983/84-1985/86; and a sample of English inner city areas 1983-85. For the cross-sectional analysis the sample sizes were 6527 for the English representative sample, 4285 for the Scottish representative sample and 6709 for the English inner city areas sample. In an analysis of height gain in 2 years the samples comprised 3814, 2676 and 3682 children respectively. In the analysis the following data were used: father's employment status and social class; number of children in the family; parents' reported height and child's reported birth weight; and child's height and weight measurements and a classification of ethnic origin obtained during fieldwork. Children with an unemployed father were shorter, especially if the father was unemployed for more than a year, than children with a currently employed father. After adjustment for parents' height, child's birth weight, father's social class and family size the difference persisted but reduced, to approximately 1.2 cm. Height gain in a 2-year period was not associated with father's employment status. If father's unemployment is causally linked to child's height a child is most vulnerable at pre-school age.

Body Height↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A new method for calculation of height centiles for preadolescent children.

A new method of calculation of cross-sectional attained height centiles is proposed. This exploits the variance-stabilizing transformation, which has the form log(a+b height) up to age 11 years. Residuals of transformed height about the expected value for age are antilogged to give a single Gaussian distribution from which centiles can be calculated. In contrast to previous methods the standard errors of the centiles can be estimated without imprecise adjustment for smoothing. The parameters a and b of the transformation do not need precise estimation and the method can be used for population subgroups from which large samples cannot be obtained.

Age Factors↗