Child Health and Nutrition: Getting better and facing new challenges in China

Background Child healthcare practices in China over the last 60 years have extensively improved children's health and growth, yet new challenges lie ahead. This review aims to summarise the successful experiences and the newly identified problems in child healthcare in China. Method Information, available to the public, was obtained from Chinese databases and Chinese Government websites, chiefly the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure database, the Chinese Biomedical Literature database, the Ministry of Health website and the National Working Committee on Children and Women website. Results During its poverty-stricken 1950s-1970s, China protected children's health mainly through prevention and control of common infectious diseases and severe malnutrition within a comprehensive healthcare system. After the subsequent 30 years of rapid socio-economic development, China has achieved great success in reducing childhood mortality rates and promoting child growth, meeting the Millennium Development Goal 4 targets and the WHO child growth standards. Meanwhile, new challenges for children's healthcare emerged, including: large disparities in the health, growth and nutritional status of children, and in the accessibility and quality of child healthcare, between urban and rural areas and across different regions of China; the nutritional and healthcare concerns of the fast-expanding population of migrant children and rural left-behind children; the burgeoning epidemic of childhood obesity in urban and economically developed areas; micronutrient deficiencies such as calcium, iron, zinc and vitamin A; and increasing prevalence of mental and behavioural disorders. Conclusion Under poor economic conditions, healthcare plays a key role in protecting children against diseases. With the development of social economy, new challenges present to healthcare services, specifically, to comprehensively promote and optimise childrens' health and nutrition.