Survey of vitamin A nutritional status of primary and secondary school students in Qiongzhong,2014-2017 / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand vitamin A level of middle and primary school students in Qiongzhong Area in Hainan Province implementing the "Nutritional Compulsory Education Student Nutrition Improvement Plan" (hereinafter referred to as "Student Nutrition Plan"), and to provide suggestions for the followup implementation of student nutrition improvement work.@*Methods@#The multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to select three junior high schools and elementary schools in Qiongzhong County, Hainan Province, and students from 1-2 classes from each grade were randomly selected as survey objects. In March 2014, November 2015, December 2016 and December 2017, fasting venous blood was collected from students and serum vitamin A (Retinol) levels were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography.@*Results@#From 2014 to 2017, vitamin A levels were (358.77±88.44) (333.54±81.91) (345.84±86.08) (370.70±87.94)μg/L respectively, the subclinical deficiency rate of vitamin A were 22.3%, 31.6%, 27.9%, 18.0%, the vitamin A level of elementary school students were (332.92±71.80) (315.34±73.41) (327.44±77.02) (356.84±80.88)μg/L, the vitamin A level of junior high school students were (412.20±95.56) (383.20±83.53) (396.63±89.48) (411.60±95.14)μg/L, the difference were statistically significant by year (F=26.43, 4.01, P<0.05); vitamin A level and vitamin A subclinical rate of primary school students showed differences by year in both gender. The deficiency rate was statistically significant regardless of the annual difference between men and women(P<0.05); there was no statistically significant difference in the annual rate of vitamin A deficiency and sub-clinical vitamin A deficiency among junior high school students of different grades and genders (χ2=0.85, 2.08, 1.40, 2.36, P>0.05).@*Conclusion@#The implementation of "Student Nutrition Plan" in Qiongzhong area of Hainan Province shows pasitive effect on the vitamin A nutritional status of students. It’s suggested that prevention should be further strengthened, and nutrition knowledge publicity should be promoted.