0153

SURVEY ON SUB-CLINICAL VITAMIN A DEFICIENCY AMONG PRESCHOOL CHILDREN IN CHINA

Tan ZW, Ma GF, Lin LM, et al.
Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, China

 

Objectives: There was no available basic data on SVAD (sub-clinical vitamin A deficiency) in China .The survey will reveal and explore SVAD status and factors among preschool children in China.
Methods: Randomly selected 8669 children aged under 72 months in 14 provinces for clinical examination, questionnarie and serum VA measured. The cut -off for SVAD being ≤0.70 umol/L.
Results: The prevalence of SVAD were 11.7% in subjects. Using WHO/UNICEF recommended standard there were moderate or mild public health problem of SVAD in some poverty county of Qing Hai, Nei Meng, Guang Xi and Gui Zhou .The incidences of SVAD were 3.8%, 6.3%, 9.8%, 13.1%, 15.3%, 23.8% in big city, middle and small city, I, II, III, IV county, respectively. The younger (33.4%), the worse diet (13.2%-20.8%) the great risk of becoming SVAD among children .In addition the incidences of SVAD were higher among children of mothers with low education (19.5%), minority nationality (22.6%) and low family annual income (22.2%).
Conclusion: SVAD among preschool children is a nutrition problem in China. In particularly, it is a moderate or mild public health problem in some poverty county of China. Multiple factors need to be considered together for SVAD, such as age, diet, education status and nationality of parent and family annual income in children.