StudyonLongitudinalChildGrowthTrajectories

Korsa, Senahara

dc.contributor.author	Korsa, Senahara
dc.date.accessioned	2022-02-09T12:18:10Z
dc.date.available	2022-02-09T12:18:10Z
dc.date.issued	2022-02-09
dc.identifier.uri	http://ir.bdu.edu.et/handle/123456789/13009
dc.description.abstract	Growth is described as changes in body size and shapewith age. The primary motivation for studying human growth is to understand the underlying biological changes that occur at the individual andpopulation levels. Thisstudy is aimed toinvestigatethe growthcharacteristics of childrenin four low- andmiddle-incomecountries. Inconsistent withthisobjective,we adopted dynamicstrajectorymodelsthataccountforbothindividualandpopulationgrowthchangesover time. The investigation was carried out on the longitudinal data obtained from the Young Lives cohort study. The outcome of interest is a periodic child’s physical height measured in centimeters from age one to fifteen years. A total of 3401 males and 3200 females with height measured on five occasions, were included. The regression and structural equation modeling frameworks were employed to analyse the data. In the regression framework, mixed-effect techniques such as fractional polynomial, nonlinear growth curve and piecewise regression modelswereadopted.Inthestructuralequationmodelingframework,latentmodelingtechniques such as latent growth curve, latent basis growth curve and growth mixture models were used. Latent growth curve models were used to characterise and quantify the latent change processes of children's height growth. The findingsshowedthat therewas apositivenonlinearrelationship between the height growthof childrenand their ages. This nonlinear trajectory was foundto be segmented into three phases of linear trajectories. A quick growth change was observed in the first phasebuttherateofincrementis decreasedas achildgrewolder. The findingsalsoshowed that gender and country differences had a significant influence on a child's height growth. Growth mixture modeling was employed to examine heterogeneous growth trajectories in population.It wasfoundthatthe growthofchildrenhad2-grouplatenttrajectoriesdominatedby genderdifference.	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	Statistics	en_US
dc.title	StudyonLongitudinalChildGrowthTrajectories	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US