A Study On The Nutritional Status Of Vitamin A And Its Related Factors Among Children Aged 0 To 5 Years In Anhui Province

Objectives This study was performed to reveal the nutritonal status of vitamin A and determine its related factors among children aged 0 to 5 years in Anhui Province, and, therefore, to provide the scientific evidences for interventions to prevent and control the vitamin A deficiency.Methods A total of 1052 children aged 0 to 5 years were randomly selected from four counties and one city in Anhui Provinces. Venous blood samples were collected from all subjects and the fluorescence method was used to measure the serum level of vitamin A to evaluate the nutritional status of vitamin A of children. Socio-economic factors, family backgrounds, breast-feeding, dietary frequencies, history of diseases within two weeks, KAP on child feeding-up and other related factors were also gathered through the questionnaire by interview. The cut-off point for sub-clinical vitamin A deficiency was defined as less and equal to 20 g/dl of serum retinol level. Variance analysis, chi-square test, multiple linear regressions, Logistic regressions and other statistic methods are applied to analyse the data.Results The average SROL among children aged 0 to 5 years old was (30.36 + 7.94) P g/dl, which was comparable to that of a survey conducted at national scale in China in 2000. Prevalence of SVAD and suspected SVAD were 6.8% and 45.3% in all subjects respectively. The prevalence of SVAD is higher in rural areas(8.0%) than in urban areas(2.0%). The average SROL is significantly different between rural areas and urban areas, as well as among the sampling rural areas.The average SROL increased with the increment of average annual family income, parents' schooling, parents' wages and children's age and decreased with the incrementof the size of family, numbers and the order of siblings. The SROL in children with mixed milk breast-feeding was lower compared to that of children with pure milk breast-feeding and non-breast-feeding respectively. The SROL increased in child administrated with vitamin A preparation or fed with high frequencies of vitamin A rich foods. The SROL showed no difference in children suffering from fever and diarrhea two weeks before their blood collection compared to those without those diseases. Multiple liner regression analysis showed that children living in rural areas, younger siblings or those with a peasant mother, younger age, mixed milk breast-feeding tend to have a low SROL.The prevalence of SVAD decreased with the increase of average annual family income, parents' schooling and children's age and increased with the increase of the size of family, numbers and sequences of siblings. The prevalence of SVAD is higher in children with mixed milk breast-feeding than that of children with pure milk breast-feeding and non-breast-feeding respectively. SVAD is lower in child administrated with vitamin A preparations or fed with high frequencies of vitamin A rich foods than that of children without vitamin A preparations or with low frequencies of such foods. The prevalence of SVAD is higher in children suffering from fever and diarrhea two weeks before their blood collection (10.5% and!2.5) than in those without those diseases (6.2% and 6.1%). Factor analysis uncovered 3 distinct patterns in children's feeding. Only the 'animal flesh1 feeding pattern (factor), proved to be significantly protective from SVAD. Non-conditional Logistic regression analysis showed that children living in rural areas, younger siblings or those with a peasant mother, younger age, mixed milk breast-feeding and history of diarrhea were prone to suffer from SVAD.A1 to 4 case-control study was conducted by applying the conditional Logistic regressions to reveal the risk factors of SVAD within this study. Cases and controlswere matched by age within eight months, sex and locale. Conditional Logistic regression analysis showed that cases tended to have more siblings (OR = 1.947, 95%CI: 1.071-3.540), be younger among their siblings(OR=2.242, 95%CI: 1.209-4.167) and more likely to live in family with 4 to 5 members(OR=2.291, 95%CI: 1...