Head circumference for Mexican American infants and young children from the Hispanic health and nutrition examination survey (HHANES 1982-1984): Comparisons with Whites and Blacks from NHANES II (1976-1980).

This study presents descriptive statistics for head circumference in Mexican American children 6 months to 7 years of age using data from the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HHANES, 1982-1984) and compares these statistics with national estimates of head circumference for non-Hispanic White children and non-Hispanic Black children from the Second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II, 1976-1980). Head circumference was measured in the same standardized fashion in the two surveys. The patterns of change with age in means and in empirical percentiles were similar for both genders and for all three ethnic groups. Values for head circumference increased with age, but the rate of increase became less as age advanced. Analyses indicated that at 1, 2, and 4 years of age, mean values for head circumferences for non-Hispanic White boys were significantly larger than those for Mexican American boys. The differences in mean values for head circumferences ranged from 0.7 to 1.1 cm. Because ethnic differences in head circumferences are small in magnitude, ethnic-specific sets of reference data for head circumference are not needed for clinical evaluation of Mexican Americans, non-Hispanic Whites, and non-Hispanic Blacks. Further analyses may be necessary when additional information from NHANES III allows the calculation of the 5th and 95th percentiles for Black and Mexican American children with small confidence limits. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.