ABSTRACT
Background: The body height measurement plays an important role in personal and medico legal identification and has become invaluable aid to scientific research in Anatomy, especially anthropological anthropometry. This study is conducted to find the correlation between body height and foot length & knee height measurements in both the sexes and to determine accurate and best predictor of height from above two parameters using Correlation Coefficient. Methods: Asymptomatic, healthy 1000 subjects (500 males and 500 females), residents of Teerthanker Mahaveer University of cosmopolitan origin age over 18 years old were studied. Their body height, Foot lengths and knee height were measured and all the readings were subjected to Statistical Analysis using mean + standard deviation, Pearson’s correlation coefficients and linear regression analyses. Result: In present study, correlation coefficients (r) values between body height, foot lengths and knee height were found to be statistically significant and positive in both males, females and in combined data, with highest ‘r’ value of knee height followed by foot lengths. Regression equations for estimating body height were developed for each of these parameters by Linear Regression. Conclusion: The study suggests the Knee height to be the best body height indicator developed for estimation of body height according to gender including age as a predictor variable in order to reduce the inherent problem of sample specificity and enhance accuracy confidence in the estimation.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Height has been one of the impressive factors for personal identification of individuals since long ago & has always been of immense interest to anthropologists & for medico-legal purposes in Forensic Medicine. Methods: The present study was conducted on 800 Students (400 male & 400 female) medical students of cosmopolitan origin, ranging from age group of 17 – 25 years of Western U.P. The measurements were taken at fixed time between 2 to 5 p.m. to eliminate the discrepancies due to diurnal variation. Results: Gender differences with respect to the mean cranial length, cranial breadths were found to be significantly larger in males compared to females. Correlation coefficient between the stature and measured cranial dimensions were found to be statistically significant and positive in both males and females. Independent linear regression analyses for predicting the stature using the head length and head breadth in both genders were: Male - Stature = 109.97+3.18 x hl; Stature = 107.64+4.19 x hb Female - Stature = 121.54+2.03 x hl; Stature = 114.88+2.58 x hb. For height & cranial dimensions measurements, all three estimates yielded a very high degree of precision (TEM < 0.5 cm, rTEM < 0.84%, and R ≥ 0.98). These results suggest that both height and cranial dimensions a are sufficiently precise for anthropometric research applications. Conclusion: If one of the parameter is known the other can be known by applying the regression equations and this is of paramount importance to the forensic and anthropology sciences.