Discrepancy between Self-reported and Recorded Age and Height among Students: a Forensic Anthropological Investigation

Abstract

Age and stature estimation have apparent implications in personal identification in the events of murder, accidents or natural disaster mainly concern with forensic identification analysis. Self-reported anthropometric data is convenient and inexpensive, but relying on this data requires an accurate estimation of age and height. The biasness, precision, and accuracy of adult’s self-reported age and height across subpopulations were examined using a representative sample of adults. Aim of the present study is to report bias in an individual’s reported and documented age and height estimates. The study sample were included more than 200 young adult students (100 male and 100 female subjects approximately) from Panjab university, Chandigarh, age from 18 to 25. Linear and multiple regression analysis were done to formulate equations which would be helpful for estimation of stature and age from self-reported data for both male and females. The best correlation estimation in multiple and linear regression equations for age estimation in male was shown self-reported data whereas in females reported to be data from parents rather than self-reported data , females tends to decrease their age number as shown in results while in stature best variable is self-reported. The weakest correlation was reported to be data from close friends in both males and females.