RCPCHGrowth Python library

Calculations for children's measurements against UK and international growth references.

For AI/LLM agents working on this repository: Please read AGENTS.md for project context, development workflow, and testing strategy.

Please go to https://growth.rcpch.ac.uk/products/python-library/ for full documentation.

Issues can be raised here https://github.com/rcpch/rcpchgrowth-python/issues

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Installation

Docker

If you want to avoid setting up docker environments, there are shortcut scripts the create a dockerized environment with RCPCHGrowth already installed.

This will generate a container which will launch some Jupyter notebooks in a browser and allow local dev (with hot reload).

Convenience Scripts

The s/ folder contains helper scripts for common development tasks:

Script	Purpose
s/up	Start the development container
s/down	Stop the development container
s/test	Run pytest (auto-starts container if needed; use --running flag for already-running container)
s/notebook	Launch JupyterLab in your browser
s/shell	Open an interactive bash shell in the container
s/python	Launch Python REPL in the container

Quick start:

# Start the container and launch notebooks
s/notebook

# Run tests (in a separate terminal)
s/test

# Or run tests in an already-running container
s/test --running

# Run the UK-WHO integration suite
s/test rcpchgrowth/tests/test_uk_who.py -v

# Reference WHO test datasets and under-2 gold-standard rationale
# (192 deterministic anthro-generated cases)
# See rcpchgrowth/tests/who_test_data/README.md

# Stop when done
s/down

Minimal installation (without docker) assuming you have a python virtual env setup

pip install rcpchgrowth

With notebook & package dependencies:

pip install "rcpchgrowth[notebook]"

The notebook extra currently pulls in: pandas, matplotlib, jupyterlab, ipykernel.

Data handling / privacy

Data handling & privacy Never commit identifiable patient data. • Keep raw identifiable data outside version control (secure, access‑controlled). • De‑identify before analysis (remove names, NHS numbers, full DOB; date‑shift if required). • Do not push raw exports to forks, PRs or gists. • Use ResearchTemplate.ipynb for generating de‑identified derived outputs. If in doubt, stop and seek local information governance guidance.

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Contributing

See issues list and please open discussions before large changes.

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Copyright © Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health