Computer Calculations for Small for Gestational Age and for Growth Charts

[Nancy Bates]

I am working on the evaluation for a Healthy Start Program (an infant
mortality reduction initiative).  We have been requested to report the
number of Small for Gestational Age (SGA) infants in the program.  The
providers do not routinely report a diagnosis of SGA in the charts, even if
it is present.  Until we can train their staff to routinely plot these on a
SGA chart, we are investigating the possibility of calculating it on the
computer as part of our analysis.  We do have gestational age at delivery,
birth length and birth weight in our data set.   Does anyone have (or know
who might have) computer code for calculating whether an infant is SGA from
this information.  We would prefer calculations based on the SGA table in
the Harriet Lane Handbook, but we could use others.  Although we will be
using SPSS for Windows, we could probably find someone here to assist us in
adapting code/syntax for other softwares.

Thanks for your assistance!!  Nancy Bates

Nancy Bates, MS, RD, CHES, DrPH candidate
Health Planning and Evaluation Consultant, Crete, IL 
and
Healthy Start Evaluation Research Assistant
Maternal and Child Community Health Science Consortium
School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago

nbates1 at compuserve.com