title: A new method for calculation of height centiles for preadolescent children.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Division of Community Health, United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's, London.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chinn
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001699:Biometry / Q000379:methods*; D001827:Body Height; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D044469:Racial Groups; D012016:Reference Values; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors