Comparison of cNORM and LMS methods for estimating reference percentile curves from biometric data.

ABSTRACT: Accurate reference curves for biometric measures are essential for population health monitoring and screening. The Lambda Mu Sigma Method (LMS), introduced by Cole and Green, is widely used in public health for generating age-specific reference percentiles. This study compares LMS with cNORM, a distribution-free approach based on Taylor polynomials, previously validated in psychometric applications. Using publicly accessible National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) datasets, we compared the performance of LMS and cNORM in modelling reference curves for body mass index (BMI) and maximum oxygen consumption (VO_2max). We repeatedly drew random samples of different size to compute the models and cross-validated these to examine accuracy and bias of both methods acros

SUBMITTER: Laurenz R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12663128 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature