R Programs for Various Growth Charts

What to know

Several R packages and functions calculate percentiles and z-scores from CDC, World Health Organization (WHO), and other growth charts. These packages and functions are in addition to Statistical Analysis System (SAS) programs for calculating metrics from growth charts.

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R packages and functions

R packages on GitHub

  • cdcanthro: For CDC Growth Charts. It includes the 2022 extended z-score and percentile calculations for children and adolescents with obesity.
  • whoanthro: For WHO Growth Charts.

Packages and functions on CRAN

  • anthro: WHO z-scores and percentiles.
  • childsds: Calculation of standard deviation (z) scores and percentiles based on different standards, including those from WHO, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, China, and the United States. See the function, sds. Note that this package does not include the 2022 extended z-score and percentile calculations for children and adolescents with obesity.

Additional functions

Two functions in the Sitar package help convert overweight and obesity prevalence between the CDC, WHO, and International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) growth charts.

  • ob_convertr
  • ob_convertr2