Correlation of cephalo-facial parameters with body height in indian and african students of a university in North India

Introduction: In forensic anthropology, body height or stature estimation is important for identification of missing persons. Stature has a proportional relationship with different parts of the human body including cephalo-facial region. The cephalo-facial indices are different for different people. Therefore, they may help in stature reconstruction and identification of a person. The study was conducted to find out if there is any correlation between four cephalo-facial parameters and body height and to derive regression formulae in Indian and African students. Material and Methods: The present study was conducted on 170 students of a University in North India belonging to two different races, i.e., Indian (85) and African (85). Stature and four cephalo-facial dimensions, i.e., maximum head length (MHL), horizontal head circumference (HHC), morphological facial length (MFL) and bigonial diameter (BD) were measured. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 15. Results: In both Indian and African students all the four cephalo-facial parameters, i.e., MHL, HHC, MFL, and BD showed a positive correlation with stature (P < 0.001). It was found that in Indians the strongest correlation of stature was with MHL and least correlation was with HHC. In Africans, the highest correlation was observed with MHL and lowest with BD. Discussion and Conclusion: In this study, it was found that among the cephalo-facial parameters, cephalic parameters are more reliable than facial parameters. Out of the two cephalic parameters HHC was found to be more reliable than MHL in the estimation of stature in both Indian and African students. The regression equations derived turned out to be population/race-specific and therefore, cannot be generalized for all population groups.