History, haldanes and health inequities: exploring phenotypic changes in body size by generation and income level in the US-born White and Black non-Hispanic populations 1959-1962 to 2005-2008

摘要

Background Most public health literature on trends in population health and health inequities pertains to observed or targeted changes in rates or proportions per year or decade. We explore, in novel analyses, whether additional insight can be gained by using the 'haldane', a metric developed by evolutionary biologists to measure change in traits in standard deviations per generation, thereby enabling meaningful comparisons across species and time periods.