title: Linear growth of children attending public daycare centers in the municipality of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify variables predictors of linear growth in preschool children attending public child day care centers of Campina Grande, Paraíba.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional study on a probabilistic sample of 335 children attending child day care centers. Were obtained information about socioeconomic, maternal and children's characteristics. The height/age (Z-score) was analyzed as continuous dependent variable. Anthropometric data were obtained in compliance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization. The Multicentre Growth Reference Study was used as the reference population. The data were subjected to multiple linear regression analysis using the hierarchical model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children who slept in rooms with at least two people, households without garbage collection, households with no refrigerator, rural zone, illiterate mothers, mothers of short stature, low birth weight and stay in child day care center at part time were the conditions associated with worse height/age of children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a clear difference in linear growth with multicausal characteristic in which the low birth weight, as an expression of adverse history, and the socioeconomic conditions, as an expression of health inequities, profiling the genetic potential of growth.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Estadual da Paraíba - Campina Grande (PB), Brasil.
authors.forename: Dixis Figueroa
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Pedraza
mesh_terms: D001827:Body Height; D001938:Brazil; D002656:Child Day Care Centers; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006128:Growth; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D017150:Public Sector