The Anthropological Survey of India has initiated research on Physical Growth and Development of Children in North East India: A Public Health Issue, with the following objectives;
- To investigate the ethnic and the environmental sources of variability in physical growth and nutritional status of children from 0 – 18 years in North East India.
- To construct ethnic specific or pooled growth standards for the children of similar age ranges of both genders from this region.
The study will be cross-sectional in nature and the sample size will be 200 individuals (per ethnic group) in each gender and age class following the WHO recommendation. There will be 19 age classes from birth to 18 years of age and thus, a total target sample for each community will be 7600 individuals (200x19x2).
No such study with a massive sampling strategy has been undertaken so far.
Angami Naga community has been completed in the first phase and in second phase fieldwork among the Garo community of West Garo Hill District, Meghalaya has been initiated.