Vitamin A nutritional status and associated factors among primary and middle school students in Chongqing / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To examine the vitamin A status of children and adolescents aged between 6-17 years old in Chongqing, and to analyze the influencing factors of vitamin A deficiency, providing a scientific basis for nutritional improvement measures.@*Methods@#From 2016 to 2017, a multi-stage random sampling method was used to select approximately 1 508 children and adolescents aged between 6-17 years old from three rural and three urban locations in Chongqing. This study carried out a questionnaire survey and laboratory testing, and the statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 25.0.@*Results@#The mean vitamin A level was (1.45±0.42)μmol/L, while the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency and the subclinical deficiency rate were 0.46% and 13.46%, respectively. The binary Logistic regression analysis revealed that the following factors were associated with a lower risk of vitamin A deficiencyoverweight and obese students(OR=0.51); students whose mothers had a high school education or above(OR=0.35, P=0.01); students from big cities; and higher quartile albumin levels (Q 3 and Q 4). Students who did not eat meat each day(OR=2.05), students aged 6-8 years old, and students with C-reactive protein in the third (OR=2.12) and fourth (OR=4.54) higher quartiles were at a higher risk of vitamin A deficiency.@*Conclusion@#The subclinical vitamin A deficiency rate was relatively high among children aged 6-17 years old in Chongqing. Measures including nutritional education, reasonable diets, and nutritionally fortified food or fortifiers should be used when necessary.