Browsing by Subject "Height"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Birth Size and Maternal, Social, and Environmental Factors in the Province of Jujuy, Argentina
    (2022-01-06) Figueroa, M. I.; Martinez Carrion, J. M.; Alfaro-gomez, E. L.; Dipierri, J. E.; Martínez, J.I.; Economía Aplicada
    Introduction: birth size is affected by diverse maternal, environmental, social, and economic factors. Aim: analyze the relationships between birth size—shown by the indicators small for gestational age (SGA) and large for gestational age (LGA)—and maternal, social, and environmental factors in the Argentine province of Jujuy, located in the Andean foothills. Methods: data was obtained from 49,185 mother-newborn pairs recorded in the Jujuy Perinatal Information System (SIP) between 2009 and 2014, including the following: newborn and maternal weight, length/height, and body mass index (BMI); gestational age and maternal age; mother’s educational level, nutritional status, marital status and birth interval; planned pregnancy; geographic-linguistic origin of surnames; altitudinal place of birth; and unsatisfied basic needs (UBN). The dataset was split into two groups, SGA and LGA, and compared with adequate for gestational age (AGA). Bivariate analysis (ANOVA) and general lineal modeling (GLM) with multinomial distribution were employed. Results: for SGA newborns, risk factors were altitude (1.43 [1.12–1.82]), preterm birth (5.33 [4.17–6.82]), older maternal age (1.59 [1.24–2.05]), and primiparous mothers (1.88 [1.06–3.34]). For LGA newborns, the risk factors were female sex (2.72 [5.51–2.95]), overweight (1.33 [1.22–2.46]) and obesity (1.85 [1.66–2.07]). Conclusions: the distribution of birth size and the factors related to its variability in Jujuy are found to be strongly conditioned by provincial terrain and the clinal variation due to its Andean location.
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    Diagnosis of the release phase in the discus throw relative to elite throwers’ height
    (Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia, 2025) Azab, Mahmoud; Zureigat, Ayed A.; Fattah, Osama Abdel; Sin departamento asociado
    The aim of this study was to quantify the correlation between the thrower’s height and the release height ratio. Furthermore, an estimated equation was provided for predicting the optimal release height of the discus based on the thrower’s height. To achieve these goals, a descriptive approach was applied to a sample of 30 top discus throwers who achieved a horizontal displacement of more than 61 m. The results showed a statistically significant relationship (p < 0.05) between the thrower’s height and the release height ratio. In addition, an estimated equation was developed for predicting the optimal release height of the discus relative to the thrower’s height: release height (m) = -46.121 × thrower height (m) + 175.66. These findings suggest that thrower height plays a meaningful role in determining the optimal release height, providing practical guidance for coaches and athletes to improve discus throw performance.
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    Distribution of airborne pollen, fungi and bacteria at four altitudes using high-throughput DNA sequencing
    (Elsevier, 2020-10-11) Sánchez-Parra, Beatriz; Núñez, Andrés; García, Ana M.; Campoy, Pascual; Moreno, Diego A.; Genética y Microbiología
    The diversity and composition of bioaerosols in the atmosphere have been studied in the recent years in multiple places and under very different meteorological conditions. Pollen grains, fungal propagules and bacteria are the most studied airborne biological particles, usually individually, and correlated to environmental factors such as temperature, wind speed, rain, air pollution, etc. to understand their influence. However, the effect of the height on the distribution and composition of these bioaerosols has not been properly described so far. In this research, we analyzed concurrently these three biological particles at four different heights (1.5 m, 130 m, 500 m and 1000 m) by high-throughput DNA sequencing. We observed that the atmosphere contains a homogeneous distribution and composition of biological particles regardless of the altitude tested. Only a minority of the taxa is differently distributed. Therefore, we here deduce that the altitude does not drastically influence the airborne bioparticles distribution and composition under similar meteorological conditions. We also studied the co-occurrence between different bioaerosols, finding new potential relationships.
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    Growing taller unequally? Adult height and socioeconomic status in Spain (Cohorts 1940-1994)
    (2022-05-15) Candela Martinez, B.; Camara Hueso, A. D.; Martinez Carrion, J. M.; López-Falcón, Diana; Economía Aplicada
    Socioeconomic inequalities and their evolution in different historical contexts have been widely studied. However, some of their dimensions remain relatively unexplored, such as the role played by socioeconomic status in the trajectory of biological living standards, especially net nutritional status. The main objective of this article is to analyze whether the power of socioeconomic status (SES) to explain differences in the biological dimensions of human well-being (in this case, adult height, a reliable metric for health and nutritional status) has increased or diminished over time. Educational attainment and occupational category have been used as two different proxies for the SES of Spanish men and women born between 1940 and 1994, thus covering a historical period in Spain characterized by remarkable socioeconomic development and a marked increase in mean adult height. Our data is drawn from nine waves of the Spanish National Health Survey and the Spanish sample of two waves of the European Health Interview Survey (ENSE) for the period 1987 to 2017 (N = 73,699 citizens aged 23–47). A multivariate regression analysis has been conducted, showing that, as a whole, height differentials by educational attainment have diminished over time, whereas differences by occupational category of household heads have largely persisted. These results indicate the need for further qualification when describing the process of convergence in biological well-being indicators across social groups. For instance, the progressive enrollment of a greater proportion of the population into higher educational levels may lead us to underestimate the real differences between socioeconomic groups, while other proxies of SES still point to the persistence of such differences.
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    Month of birth and height. A case study in rural Spain
    (Elsevier, 2022-07-06) Candela Martínez, Begoña; Ramallo-Ros, Salvador; Cañabate, José; Martínez Carrión, José Miguel; Economía Aplicada; Facultad de Economía y Empresa
    Introduction: Season of birth correlates to a wide range of health conditions throughout life measured by anthropometrics. This study explores whether the month of birth and weather during gestation influence male adult height, based on Spain’s rural population before the end of the modernization process. Methods: The database of heights (N = 16.266) is composed of conscripts who reached the age of 21 between 1908 and 1985 (birth cohorts 1886–1965). The population sample has been taken from a municipality in inner Spain: Hellín, in the region of Castilla-La Mancha, mainly an agrarian area, with poor resources and low income until the 1970 s/1980 s. Two different methodologies have been implemented: a harmonic regression using sinusoidal covariables and a random forest model. Results: we find that being born at the end of the summer and during the autumn was favorable to height. The birth month with the highest statures is September, with heights 0.5 cm above the annual average and 0.9 cm above February, the birth month with the lowest average height. Furthermore, we can observe that rainfall and temperature during gestation had little additional influence due to a substitution effect with the birth month variable. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the seasonal effects on height can be significant and that it can be partially affected by environmental factors during early life. Our findings could be of interest for low-income populations and developing rural societies.
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    The Relationship between Height and Economic Development in Spain.An Historical Perspective
    (2010-01-11T13:07:43Z) María-Dolores Pedrero, Ramón; Martínez Carrión, José Miguel; Fundamentos del Análisis Económico; Economía Aplicada
    This paper investigates the relationship between height and economic development in the modern Spain. The relation is investigated using recently constructed times series with recruitment data of conscripts. We observed changes in average height along the analyzed period. These variations could be explained by different indicators of economic development such as for consumption of hygiene products, for deflator of private consumption, schooling rate, infant mortality and trade. We model human stature as a Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) and we proceed to estimate a Vector Autoregressive Equilibrium Correction Model (VECqM) to quantify the height response to different changes in the different explanatory variables. The analysis shows that there is a long-run relationship between height, income, and other indicators of economic development in Spain as consumption of hygiene products, and the degree of openness.
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    The differential vertical distribution of the airborne biological particles reveals an atmospheric reservoir of microbial pathogens and aeroallergens
    (Springer, 2020-03-27) Núñez, Andrés; Moreno, Diego A.; Genética y Microbiología
    The most abundant biological particles present in the air are bacteria, fungal propagules and pollen grains. Many of them are proved allergens or even responsible for airborne infectious diseases, which supports the increase of studies in recent years on their composition, diversity, and factors involved in their variability. However, most studies in urban areas are conducted close to ground level and a factor such as height is rarely taken into account. Thus, the information about how the composition of biological particles changes with this variable is scarce. Here, we examined the differential distribution of bacteria, fungi, and plants at four altitudes (up to ∼ 250 m) in a metropolitan area using high-throughput DNA sequencing. Most taxa were present at all levels (common taxa). However, a transitional layer between 80 and 150 m seemed to affect the scattering of these bioaerosols. Taxa not present at all altitudes (non-common) showed an upward tendency of diversity for bacteria and plants with height, while the opposite trend was observed for fungi. Certain patterns were observed for fungi and specific plant genera, while bacterial taxa showed a more arbitrary distribution and no patterns were found. We detected a wide variety of aeroallergens and potential pathogens at all heights, which summed a substantial portion of the total abundance for fungi and plants. We also identified potential connections between the biological particles based on their abundances across the vertical section.