Anaemia among Students of Rural China’s Elementary Schools: Prevalence and Correlates in Ningxia and Qinghai’s Poor Counties

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition 29(5): 471-485, 2011 (with Renfu Luo, Linxiu Zhang, Chengfang Liu, Qiran Zhao, Yaojiang Shi, Elaine Yu, Brian Sharbono, Alexis Medina, Scott Rozelle, and Reynaldo Martorell)

Although the past few decades have seen rising incomes and increased government attention to rural development, many children in rural China still lack regular access to micronutrient-rich diets. Insufficient diets and poor knowledge of nutrition among the poor result in nutritional problems, including iron-deficiency anaemia, which adversely affect attention and learning of students in school. Little research has been conducted in China documenting the prevalence of nutritional problems among vulnerable populations, such as school-age children, in rural areas. The absence of programmes to combat anaemia among students might be interpreted as a sign that the Government does not recognize its severity. The goals of this paper were to measure the prevalence of anaemia among school-age children in poor regions of Qinghai and Ningxia, to identify individual-, householdand school-based factors that correlate with anaemia in this region, and to report on the correlation between the anaemic status and the physical, psychological and cognitive outcomes. The results of a cross-sectional survey are reported here. The survey involved over 4,000 fourth and fifth grade students from 76 randomly-selected elementary schools in 10 poor counties in rural Qinghai province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, located in the northwest region of China.