National Growth Charts for the United Arab Emirates

Overview

Journal J Epidemiol

Specialty Public Health

Date 2008 Dec 18

PMID 19075495

Citations 4

Authors

Yousef M Abdulrazzaq

Mohamed A Moussa

Nicolaas Nagelkerke

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Information on the health and growth status of the population is essential for planning and administering health promotion programs.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of the anthropometric measurements of United Arab Emirates (UAE) children aged 0-18 years, by a multistage stratified random sampling technique based on age and sex. Healthy, full-term children of UAE nationality who did not have any diseases that could affect their growth pattern were included in the study. Children were selected using multistage sampling, using sampling proportional to size methods in 9 geographical areas. Growth charts for various anthropometric measures were created using Cole's LMS statistical package. This package estimates age-specific percentiles with the use of smoothing splines after transformation to normality.

Results: A total of 21,068 children (12,159 females) between the ages of 0 and 18 years were studied. In the present study, we included 8-15% of the population aged 0-18 years. The growth chart for 0-36 months is very similar to the NCHS growth reference chart in terms of both weight for age and length and height for age. The mean (+SD) length/height in children was 49.9 +/- 3.2 cm at birth, 75.9 +/- 5.7 cm at 12 months, 86.4 +/- 4.5 cm at 24 months, 95.1 +/- 5.9 cm at 36 months, and 111.1 +/- 6.4 cm at 60 months. The height of UAE children in the first 3 years of life, especially at the ages of 2 and 3 years, mirrored those achieved by Brazilian children in the WHO study.

Conclusion: The results of the present study are useful for growth assessment of UAE children.

Citing Articles

Body mass index and head circumference growth charts for the United Arab Emirates-the UAEMCGS 2 study.

Abdulrazzaq Y, Aburawi E, Abdulrahman M, Alshamsi A, Zidan M Sci Rep. 2025; 15(1):6477.

PMID: 39987286 PMC: 11846874. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-90942-z.

Anthropometric indices growth references (length, Weight and Head Circumferences) of children aged 0-24 months in North-East of Iran by GAMLSS.

Kazemian S, Hosseinzadeh E, Khodashenas M, Dadgarmoghaddam M, Tabesh H BMC Pediatr. 2024; 24(1):649.

PMID: 39394559 PMC: 11468186. DOI: 10.1186/s12887-024-05126-x.

Socio-cultural practices may have affected sex differences in stature in Early Neolithic Europe.

Cox S, Nicklisch N, Francken M, Wahl J, Meller H, Haak W Nat Hum Behav. 2023; 8(2):243-255.

PMID: 38081999 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01756-w.

Comparison between the World Health Organization and Bahraini children growth standards.

Almughlaq S, Al-Laith A, Al-Thawadi S Rev Paul Pediatr. 2023; 41:e2022050.

PMID: 37255108 PMC: 10231415. DOI: 10.1590/1984-0462/2023/41/2022050.

National growth charts for United Arab Emirates children with Down syndrome from birth to 15 years of age.

Aburawi E, Nagelkerke N, Deeb A, Abdulla S, Abdulrazzaq Y J Epidemiol. 2014; 25(1):20-9.

PMID: 25196167 PMC: 4275434. DOI: 10.2188/jea.JE20130081.

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