What are the reported correlation coefficients between length and girth in the largest measured studies and meta‑analyses?

1. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews: weak and inconsistent correlations

The largest recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses—reviewing thousands of measured men and multiple regional series—report heterogeneity across studies and conclude that somatometric correlations (including length versus girth) are generally inconsistent or weak rather than strong and reproducible; Veale and colleagues’ synthesis of the measured literature is repeatedly cited as finding the most reliable association to be between stretched length and height, while correlations between other penile parameters (including length vs girth) are described as weak or variable ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Large measured cohorts: statistically significant but incompletely reported effect sizes

Large single‑country series that measured men directly—such as the Italian study of 4,685 men and the Argentinian cohort of 800 men—report statistically significant relationships between different penile measures (flaccid, stretched, erect) and note positive associations of length with girth in many comparisons, but these papers emphasize the weakness and inconsistency of somatometric correlations and often report significance without delivering a single pooled Pearson/Spearman coefficient for length-versus-girth across populations ^{[2] [5]}.

3. Individual studies: positive correlations described, numeric r often missing or small

Multiple measured studies describe “statistically significant” positive correlations between flaccid length, stretched length and penile girth (for example, some hospital‑based series and cross‑sectional analyses), yet the accessible summaries in the provided material either do not report the precise correlation coefficient or report that correlations are “poor” or “loose”; ResearchGate summaries and individual-study abstracts note significance but do not give a consistent r value that can be pooled without returning to the original data ^{[6] [3]}.

4. What numbers are available in public summaries—and what they mean

Publicly available synopses and encyclopedic summaries compile isolated correlation figures for related anthropometrics (e.g., weak correlations between various penile measures and height with r values around 0.15–0.22 in some sub‑analyses), but these figures relate to penis-to‑body measures rather than length‑to‑girth directly and are drawn from selected subsets rather than meta‑analytic pooling; therefore they illustrate the overall pattern—small positive correlations when reported—but do not provide a consensus length‑vs‑girth coefficient across the large meta-analyses ^{[7] [3]}.

5. Methodological reasons a single coefficient is elusive

Measurement heterogeneity—differences in whether studies use flaccid, stretched or erect states, where circumference is measured (base versus mid-shaft), whether pubic fat is compressed, and whether measurements are clinician‑taken or self‑reported—produces wide dispersion and undermines a simple pooled r; systematic reviews emphasize this methodological inconsistency as a primary reason that associations look weak and vary across regions and study designs ^{[4] [1]}.

6. Bottom line: qualitative consensus, quantitative gap

Across the largest reviews and cohorts the qualitative consensus is clear: length and girth show positive association but the relationship is weak-to-moderate and inconsistent across datasets; however, the provided meta-analyses and big measured studies do not report a single, agreed numerical correlation coefficient for length versus girth that can be confidently cited as the definitive value—readers seeking a pooled r must consult the individual studies’ full tables or raw data because summaries in the cited sources report significance and descriptive patterns rather than a standardized, pooled correlation coefficient ^{[1] [2] [4] [6]}.