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    National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS) Reference
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Sinha, Isita
    Growth is a kind of velocity and measures the rate of change of size over a certain period of time. Growth measurements are taken at regular intervals over a specified period of time. Growth assessment is basically a kind of comparison with a reference normally called a “growth reference”. Without such a reference, growth assessment becomes arbitrary. Until the late 1970s, a number of growth charts were utilized to assess child growth. In the year 1977, the National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS) published a new set of growth charts for children aged <18 years based on data from the Fels Longitudinal Growth Study and nationally representative surveys. The NCHS later became a part of the Centre for disease control (CDC) in the year 1987. The NCHS growth charts consists of 14 sex specific growth charts and used different indicators like weight-for-age, weight- for- length, length-for-age, head circumference for age stature-forage and weight-for-stature. These curves represent attained size, and do not describe rates of growth as might be represented in incremental or longitudinal growth charts. It utilizes per centile rankings to describe the relative size of a given child. The main advantage of NCHS reference is that the data was based on current and high quality growth data as well as on the most recent advances in data processing and analysis.
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    The WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS)
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Debnath, Sampriti
    The World Health Organization (WHO) Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS) (1997-2003) was a community-based, multi-country project in collaboration with other institutions to formulate new growth references for infants and young children. This study was a combination of a longitudinal study and a cross-sectional study. The subjects had favourable socio-economic conditions to grow with low mobility. Other inclusion criteria were absence of health or environmental constraints on growth, absence of maternal smoking and breast fed children and adherence to the feeding recommendations by MGRS. Data was collected from 8,500 children from Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman and the United States of America. This study has published the standards which describe how healthy children should grow under optimal health and environmental condition. The growth charts formulated by the MGRS study are also known as WHO growth charts. The standards formulated by this study which are applicable to all the children worldwide irrespective of ethnicity, feeding practices and environmental diversity.