Statistical Study of Child Growth: A Case Study of Rajshahi City

Abstract

Longitudinal data on 11 preselected variables of child growth was collected during the period of 25 May to 17 December, 2002 for a group of children from birth to 48 months of age from the study area. The study started with 296 children. There was about 38% loss of the study children during the 4 years of study. Finally, we have 169 children. Details of data collection and the underlines problems are given in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 5 of this dissertation is a contributory one which contains findings of the study. Fourteen tables and 14 charts are appended in this chapter. This tables and charts explain the growth patterns of children in study area. The most interesting of the findings are that growth patterns show two remarkable drifts, one just before the age of 1 year and the second just after the age of about 30 months which are absent in standard growth charts like that of CDC and WHO. There is another interesting finding, that is right and left wrist-elbow length differs by more than 2 cm among the children of the study area. There are some other variations in the growth velocities within and between the sexes. Chapter 6 is the concluding remarks where major findings, short coming of the study and scope for further research, specially the impact of varying sample size,socio-economic, environmental, nutritional variables, seasonality of birth, reproductive health, etc may be studied.