High anaemia rate in China’s Xinjiang region points to malnutrition in young people: studies
- Papers published in two medical journals show extent of blood condition in children despite economic growth in the western region
- The rise of some other diseases, including diabetes, mirrors national health trends and may be attributed to an ageing population
About 16 per cent of Xinjiang residents 15 years old or younger had anaemia, a condition in which there is lower concentration of red blood cells than normal.
The rate of anaemia in Xinjiang is 23 per cent higher than the national average. The disorder has been dropping across the country, but in Xinjiang it was rising, albeit slowly, with a 0.11 per cent increase from 2016 to 2018.
The discovery “suggests that there may be malnutrition among adolescents in Xinjiang”, Professor Sun Hong, of Central South University’s Xiangya Hospital, said in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Soft Science of Health early this month.
Sun’s data came from Xinjiang’s health authorities. Since 2016, the regional government has launched a programme known as “health examination for all”. The service is free, and about 18 million people, or more than 70 per cent of the population, take part in the programme each year. Private information was protected, but scientists could assess an aggregated database for public health research.
Another study by Xinjiang Medical University’s school of public health found that over a quarter of Xinjiang children aged up to six years old had anaemia, more than twice the national rate. The results were published by Zikeya Naijimu and colleagues in a paper in another Chinese-language journal, Modern Preventive Medicine, last month.