Original Articles
WANG Ai-hua, HUANG Guang-wen, LIU Zhi-yu
Objective To analyze the health services and health status of children under 7 years old in Hunan Province from 2014 to 2017, and to provide a theoretical basis for formulating child care management measures. Methods We selected the data from Annual Report on Maternal and Child Health in Hunan Province from 2014 to 2017, and calculated the evaluation indicators regarding children’s health services and health status, such as neonatal visiting rate, child system management rate, growth retardation rate, overweight rate and child mortality rate. The differences in indicators of different years and different household registrations were compared. Results There were 3.192 million live births in Hunan Province during 2014-2017, including 1.125 million (35.26%) cases in cities and 2.067 million (64.74%) cases in rural areas. The number of live births in 2017 increased by 6.97 % as compared with that in 2014, and the number of live births in cities was growing faster than that in rural areas. The neonatal visiting rate, exclusive breastfeeding rate of infants within 6 months, hemoglobin test rate of children under 5 years old and system management rate of children under 3 years old were 95.24%, 70.39%, 74.60% and 89.10% respectively. These rates in 2017 respectively increased by 2.40%, 2.65%, 13.16% and 5.40% as compared with those in 2014. Breastfeeding rate of infants within 6 months, height and weight check-up rate and health management rate of children under 7 years old were 89.32%, 89.38% and 92.60% respectively, and these rates in 2014-2017 were all above 85%. The detection rates of growth retardation, low body weight, overweight and obesity in children under 5 years old were 0.87%, 1.30%, 1.01% and 0.49% respectively. The detection rates of growth retardation and low body weight were higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the detection rates of overweight and obesity were higher in cities than in rural areas. The prevalence rates of anemia and moderate-to-severe anemia were 3.92% and 0.46% respectively, and the above-mentioned rates were higher in rural areas than in cities. The detection rates of growth retardation, low body weight and moderate-to-severe anemia in 2017 declined by 13.68%, 19.72% and 10.42% respectively as compared with those in 2014, while the prevalence rates of overweight, obesity and anemia increased by 21.74%, 8.51% and 25.74% respectively. The mortality rate of children under 5 years old, infant mortality rate and neonatal mortality rate were 5.91‰, 3.77‰ and 2.18‰ respectively, and the above-mentioned rates in 2017 decreased by 31.13%, 31.72% and 32.33% respectively as compared with those in 2014. The number of non-household registration live births was 33,869. The mortality rate of children under 5 years old, infant mortality rate and neonatal mortality rate in non-household registration children were 8.03‰, 5.55‰ and 3.48‰ respectively, which were 26.40%, 32.07% and 37.36% higher than those in the local household registration children. Conclusions The situation of child health care services in Hunan Province has gradually improved, and the health status of children has ameliorated. However, the proportions of overweight and obese children increase, and the difference in the mortality rates of household registration and non-household registration children is significant. It is necessary to improve the quality of child care management, promote balanced nutritional feeding, reduce the number of overweight or obese children and strengthen the management of non-household children so as to further improve child care services and health status.