SECONDARY SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL AND URBAN SOUTH-AFRICAN BLACK-CHILDREN

The timing and duration of secondary sexual development in two samples of rural and urban South African black children were investigated usi ng the Tanner staging techniques and compared to similar data from Swi tzerland and England. In general rural black children were consistentl y delayed in the age at which they entered the events of puberty, and took longer to pass through each of the stages. Urban black children, from good socioeconomic backgrounds, were advanced in relation to thei r rural peers and slightly ahead of the European samples. There were n o significant differences in the sequence of events. Estimates of test icular volume on the well-off urban boys demonstrated that they exhibi ted similar volumes to European boys at similar ages. It is suggested that the British clinical longitudinal growth standards could be effec tively used to sensitively monitor the growth and maturation of black urban children from good socioeconomic backgrounds.