Public health practitioners and social scientists frequently compare height against one-size-fits-all standards of human growth to assess well-being, deprivation, and disease risk. However, underlying differences in height can make some naturally tall populations appear well-off by universal standards, even though they live in severe states of deprivation. In this article, I describe the worldwide extent of these population differences in height and illustrate how using a universal yardstick to compare population height can create puzzling disparities (eg, between South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa) while also underestimating childhood stunting in specific world regions (eg, West Africa and Haiti). I conclude by discussing potential challenges of developing and implementing population-sensitive standards for assessing healthy development.

中文翻译：

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一种尺寸并不适合所有人。正常身高的通用标准如何隐藏贫困并制造虚假悖论

公共卫生从业者和社会科学家经常将身高与一刀切的人类成长标准进行比较，以评估幸福感、匮乏和疾病风险。然而，潜在的身高差异可能会使一些天生高大的人群按照普遍标准看起来很富裕，即使他们生活在严重的贫困状态中。在本文中，我描述了这些人口身高差异的全球范围，并说明如何使用通用标准来比较人口身高会造成令人费解的差异（例如，南亚和撒哈拉以南非洲之间的差异），同时也会低估特定世界的儿童发育迟缓地区（例如，西非和海地）。最后，我讨论了制定和实施评估健康发展的人口敏感标准的潜在挑战。