ArticleBMJ global health2020
Factors associated with head circumference and indices of cognitive development in early childhood.
Article in BMJ global health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Head circumference and intelligence, schooling, employment, and income: a systematic review.BMC pediatrics · 2024Pooled it
- Postnatal conditional growth and size and body composition at 24 months in moderate-and-late preterm children.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Association Between Head Circumference Growth and Peripheral Nerve Cross-Sectional Area Growth in Infants: A Potential Future Biomarker for Central and Peripheral Nerve Maturation.Neuropediatrics · 2026Article
- Early life trajectories of head circumference predict executive function and fluid cognitive skills at age 4 in Kenya.Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · 2025Article
- Head Circumference Versus Length and Weight Deficits up to 2 Years of Age in Bangladesh.Maternal & child nutrition · 2025Article
- The reference curves of percentile for the length and head circumference of infants aged 0-1 year in Hainan Province, China.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The odds of having obesity in Egyptian children with autism spectrum disorders is higher than stunting compared to healthy developing peers: a national survey.BMC pediatrics · 2024Article
- Article
- Multimodal machine learning for modeling infant head circumference, mothers' milk composition, and their shared environment.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Exposure of preterm neonates receiving total parenteral nutrition to phthalates and its impact on neurodevelopment at the age of 2 months.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Characterising school-age health and function in rural Zimbabwe using the SAHARAN toolbox.PloS one · 2023Article
- Impact of Neonatal Body (Dis)Proportionality Determined by the Cephalization Index (CI) on Gross Motor Development in Children with Down Syndrome: A Prospective Cohort Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- A Scoping Review of Clinical Studies in Infants Fed Formulas Containing Palm Oil or Palm Olein and Sn-2 Palmitate.The Journal of nutrition · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWhile head circumference (HC) has been related to intracranial volume and brain size, its association with cognitive function remains unclear. We sought to understand the relationship among various biological and socioeconomic risk factors, HC and cognitive development.
methodsWe analysed data across resource-poor settings in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Peru, South Africa and Tanzania from the Etiology, Risk Factors and Interactions of Enteric Infections and Malnutrition and the Consequences for Child Health and Development longitudinal birth cohort study. Participating children were enrolled and followed up between 2009 and 2014. A final sample of 1210 children aged 0-24 months were included in the analyses. The main outcomes were HC for age Z-score and cognitive, gross motor and language scores from Bayley Scales of Infant Development-III tests. Length, weight and HC were measured monthly, and cognitive tests were administered at 6, 15 and 24 months of age. To disentangle the associations between risk factors and HC from linear growth and to distinguish the direct and indirect effects of these risk factors on cognitive function, we conducted mediation analysis using longitudinal models to account for all data measured during follow-up.
resultsAverage HC-for-age Z-score (HCAZ) was -0.54 (95% CI -0.47 to -0.62) near birth and -1.01 (95% CI -0.94 to -1.08) at 24 months. Children with higher enrolment weight (p<0.0001), higher socioeconomic score (p=0.00037) and taller mothers (p=0.00084) had higher HCAZ at all ages, while enteropathogen infection (p=0.013) and more febrile episodes (p=0.013) were associated with lower HCAZ. The associations between HCAZ and enrolment weight-for-age, maternal height, socioeconomic status or pathogen burden were partly mediated through their associations with length-for-age. HCAZ showed no association with cognitive, gross motor or language skills at 6, 15 and 24 months of age.
conclusionsThe main risk factors associated with HC are similar to those associated with body length, and HC is not related to cognitive function.
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