Women and Health Initiative, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Matern Child Nutr. 2019 Oct;15(4):e12835. doi: 10.1111/mcn.12835. Epub 2019 May 23.
Many interventions focus on preventing stunting in the first 1,000 days of life. We take a broader perspective on childhood growth to assess the proportions of children who suffer persistent stunting, recover, and falter and become newly stunted between birth and adolescence. We use longitudinal data collected on 7,128 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. Data were collected in five survey waves between the ages of 1 to 15 years. We use descriptive and graphical approaches to compare the trajectories of children first stunted by age 1, first stunted by age 5, and those remained not stunted until age 5. On average, 29.6% of children were first stunted by age 1, 12.9% of children were first stunted by the age 5, and 68.7% of children were not stunted at either age 1 or age 5. A larger percentage of children stunted by age 1 remained stunted at age 15 (40.7%) compared with those who were first stunted by age 5 (32.3%); 33.7% of children first stunted by age 1 and 31.1% of children first stunted by age 5 go on to recover, but then falter during later childhood. 13.1% of children who were not stunted at age 1 or age 5 become newly stunted between the ages of 8 and 15. Our results show that children both become stunted and recover from stunting into adolescence. More attention should be paid to interventions to support healthy growth throughout childhood.
许多干预措施都集中在生命最初的 1000 天预防发育迟缓上。我们从更广阔的儿童成长视角出发，评估在生命最初到青春期之间持续发育迟缓、恢复、反复和新出现发育迟缓的儿童比例。我们使用在埃塞俄比亚、印度、秘鲁和越南的 7128 名儿童的纵向数据进行分析。这些数据是在儿童 1 至 15 岁期间的五次调查中收集的。我们使用描述性和图形方法来比较在 1 岁时首次发育迟缓的儿童、在 5 岁时首次发育迟缓的儿童和那些直到 5 岁都未发育迟缓的儿童的轨迹。平均而言，29.6%的儿童在 1 岁时首次发育迟缓，12.9%的儿童在 5 岁时首次发育迟缓，68.7%的儿童在 1 岁或 5 岁时都没有发育迟缓。在 15 岁时，更多在 1 岁时发育迟缓的儿童仍然发育迟缓（40.7%），而那些在 5 岁时首次发育迟缓的儿童（32.3%）；在 1 岁时首次发育迟缓的儿童中，有 33.7%和在 5 岁时首次发育迟缓的儿童中，有 31.1%会恢复，但随后在儿童后期又出现发育迟缓。13.1%在 1 岁或 5 岁时没有发育迟缓的儿童在 8 至 15 岁之间新出现发育迟缓。我们的研究结果表明，儿童既会出现发育迟缓，也会从中恢复并进入青春期。应更加关注支持儿童期全程健康成长的干预措施。
