Identification of outlying height and weight data in the Iranian National Health Survey 1990-92

M. Hosseini, R. G. Carpenter and K. Mohammad

Journal of Applied Statistics, 1998, vol. 25, issue 5, 601-612

Abstract: Data on the weights and heights of children 2-18 yeas old in Iran were obtained in a National Health Survey of 10 660 families in 1990-92. Data were 'cleaned' in 1 year age groups. After excluding gross outliers by inspection of bivariate scatter plots, Box-Cox power transformations were used to normalize the distributions of height and weight. If a multivariate Box-Cox power transformation to normality exists, then it is equivalent to normalizing the data variable by variable. After excluding gross outliers, exclusions based on the Mahalanobis distance were almost identical to those identified by Hadi's iterative procedure, because the percentages of outliers were small. In all, 1% of the observations were gross outliers and a further 0.4% were identified by multivariate analysis. Review of records showed that the outliers identified by multivariate analysis resulted from data-processing errors. After transformation and 'cleaning', the data quality was excellent and suitable for the construction of growth charts.

Date: 1998
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DOI: 10.1080/02664769822855

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