African Studies Center, Leiden University
Normal user
10 Apr 2017, 12:21
I have an older study that reports undernutrition using the old Harvard standards, and I'd like to convert the reported Harvard percentiles to be able to compare them with z-scores from NCHS/WHO standards. Can anyone point me to a reference/publication that will help me to do this?
Self-employed
Technical expert
27 Apr 2017, 15:13
Dear Bill Kinsey:
Wow, I have not heard mentioned the Harvard criteria in many years. I suspect, although I cannot be sure, that they cannot be mathematically converted to the WHO Growth Standard just as indices calculated using the old WHO:NCHS:CDC cannot be mathematically converted to those obtained from the WHO Growth Standard. I could only find a couple of references dealing somewhat tagentially with this issue, one of which is http://www.popline.org/node/411662. I don't even know if there are PC programs to calculate indices using the Harvard Growth reference.
However, I imagine that if you have both the original indices and the ages, weights, and heights/lengths of the children, you could easily calculate the WHO Growth Standard indices to compare. I hope this woefully inadequate answer is helpful.