Modeling of Diachronic Changes in Adult Body Height in Relation to Fluctuations in Socioeconomic and Demographic Indicators in Russia at the Turn of the 21^st Century

Introduction: Adult body height is influenced by various environmental factors throughout the entire period of growth, which makes it a sensitive biomarker of living standards and health at individual and population levels. In the context establishing the spatiotemporal variation of body height, the studies of exogenous determinants exerting the greatest impact on the somatic status and general health of the population gain special importance.
Objective: To develop a mathematical model of the secular dynamics in adult body height of Russian males and females born in 1967–2000.
Materials and methods: We used a set of anthropometric, socioeconomic, and demographic data from open sources. To analyze secular changes, we compared mean values of adult height between the neighboring birth cohorts. To determine the differential influence of exogenous factors on secular changes in body height, we assessed associations between groups with ascending or descending temporal dynamics of this measurement and the means of proxy variables for exogenous factors.
Results: We found that differences in body height between birth cohorts were associated with changes in the coefficient of economic inequality (Gini coefficient), the level of animal protein consumption, and life expectancy at birth.         If daily per capita intake of animal protein by representatives of a certain birth cohort was on average more than 50.8 g for males and 49.7 g for females during the whole growth period, then they would be higher than their peers born in the previous year.
Conclusions: We propose an original probabilistic model of the relationships between fluctuations in socioeconomic indicators and diachronic changes in adult body height in Russia at the turn of the 21^st century that reflects the greatest impact of economic inequality, nutrition and population health status on secular trend.

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