Physical growth: is it a good indicator of development in early childhood in low- and middle-income countries?

BMC Pediatrics

Table 2 Medians of country means of HAZ and ECD scores and association between those by HDI groups and regions

	Median mean HAZ^(a)	Median mean ECD^(b)	Median correlation^(c)	Median SMD^(d)
Human development index group
Low	− 1.62	5.31	0.16	0.07
Medium	−1.02	5.98	0.14	0.06
High	−0.40	6.80	0.05	0.01
Region
East Asia and the Pacific	−1.70	6.29	0.08	0.01
Sub-Sahara Africa	−1.47	5.31	0.16	0.07
Europe and Central Asia	−0.15	6.88	0.07	0.05
Latin America and Caribbean	−0.58	6.90	0.15	0.04
Middle East and North Africa	−0.64	5.88	0.04	0.01
South Asia	−1.89	5.66	0.22	0.13

^(a)Height-for-age Z score: calculated using the WHO Anthro Version 3.2.2 software (2011)
^(b)Early childhood development index
^(c)Pearson correlation coefficient between HAZ and standardised ECD score
^(d)Standardised mean difference: calculated using a multiple linear regression predicting standardised ECD scores from HAZ taking into account child sex, child age, and household wealth index

ISSN: 1471-2431