Multi-level modelling of longitudinal child growth data from the Birth-to-Twenty Cohort: a comparison of growth models

Different structural and non-structural models have been used to describe human growth patterns. However, few studies have compared the fitness of these models in an African transitioning population.

To find model(s) that best describe the growth pattern from birth to early childhood using mixed effect modelling.

The study compared the fitness of four structural (Berkey-Reed, Count, Jenss-Bayley and the adapted Jenss-Bayley) and two non-structural (2nd and 3rd order Polynomial) models. The models were fitted to physical growth data from an urban African setting from birth to 10 years using a multi-level modelling technique. The goodness-of-fit of the models was examined using median and maximum absolute residuals, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC).

There were variations in how the different models fitted to the data at different measurement occasions. The Jenss-Bayley and the polynomial models did not fit well to growth measurements in the early years, with very high or very low percentage of positive residuals. The Berkey-Reed model fitted consistently well over the study period.

The Berkey-Reed model, previously used and fitted well to infancy growth data, has been shown to also fit well beyond infancy into childhood.