Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is generally defined as a cluster of metabolically related cardiovascular risk factors which are often associated with the condition of insulin resistance, elevated blood pressure, and abdominal obesity. During the past decades, MetS has become a major public health issue worldwide in both adults and children. In this study, data from the China Health and Nutrition Surveys (CHNS) was used to assess the prevalence of MetS based on both the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATPIII) guidelines and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria, and to evaluate its possible correlates. A total of 831 children aged 7–18 years were included in this study, and 28 children were classified as having MetS as defined by the modified NCEP-ATPIII definition, which yielded an overall prevalence of 3.37%. Elevated blood pressure was the most frequent MetS component. The results of logistic regression models revealed that increased body mass index (BMI), hyperuricemia, and insulin resistance (IR) were all associated with the presence of MetS. To conclude, our study revealed the prevalence of MetS in Chinese children at the national level. Further large-scale studies are still needed to identify better MetS criteria in the general paediatric population in China.

Child health has been addressed as a priority at both global and national levels for many decades. In China, difficulty of accessing paediatricians has been of debate for a long time, however, there is limited evidence to assess the population- and geography-related inequality of paediatric workforce distribution. This study aimed to analyse the inequality of the distributions of the paediatric workforce (including paediatricians and paediatric nurses) in China by using Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, and Theil L index, data were obtained from the national maternal and child health human resource sampling survey conducted in 2010. In this study, we found that the paediatric workforce was the most inequitable regarding the distribution of children <7 years, the geographic distribution of the paediatric workforce highlighted very severe inequality across the nation, except the Central region. For different professional types, we found that, except the Central region, the level of inequality of paediatric nurses was higher than that of the paediatricians regarding both the demographic and geographic distributions. The inner-regional inequalities were the main sources of the paediatric workforce distribution inequality. To conclude, this study revealed the inadequate distribution of the paediatric workforce in China for the first time, substantial inequality of paediatric workforce distribution still existed across the nation in 2010, more research is still needed to explore the in-depth sources of inequality, especially the urban-rural variance and the inner- and inter-provincial differences, and to guide national and local health policy-making and resource allocation.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a serious public health problem worldwide; however, the availability of information on the prevalence of NAFLD in the general pediatric population is still limited. The primary aim of this study was to reveal the prevalence and correlates of suspected NAFLD in Chinese children at the national level. Data from the China Health and Nutrition Surveys (CHNS) was used. Weight, height, waist circumference (WC), blood pressure (BP) were measured for children aged 7–18 years. Blood samples were collected and analyzed. Children were classified as having suspected NAFLD if common causes of liver disease were excluded, and serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values were above the established thresholds (>22.1 IU/L for girls and >25.8 IU/L for boys). A percentage of 9.03% (75 out of 831) of Chinese children was found to have suspected NAFLD. Overweight and obesity according to BMI percentiles, abdominal obesity, hyperuricemia (uric acid (UA) > 327 μmol/L), and elevated total cholesterol (TC) were all detected as the correlates of childhood suspected NAFLD when adjusting for other factors. Our study revealed the prevalence of suspected NAFLD in general Chinese children at the national level for the first time. Our findings indicate that suspected NAFLD in children is associated with increasing childhood morbidities, further studies are needed to better understand the prevalence of childhood NAFLD and its correlates, and large-scale programs should be launched to screen NAFLD in the pediatric population in China.

Women’s health is defined as a continuum throughout their whole lives. In China, women receive life-round preventative and curative health care from the health system, although the universal access to reproductive health has already been basically achieved in China, the situation of women’s access to curative health care is still unknown. Data from the national maternal and child health human resource investigation were analysed. Lorenz curves, Gini coefficients, and Theil L indexes were drawn and calculated to reflect the inequality. Demographically, we found that the Obstetric and gynaecological (OB/GYN) workforce was the least equitable regarding the distribution of live births. Demographically, we found that the OB/GYN workforce was the least equitable regarding the distribution of live births. The geographic distribution of the OB/GYN workforce was found to be severely inequitable, especially in the West region. Most of the inequality was found to come from inner-regions. For the first time, the distribution inequality of OB/GYN workforce in China was analysed. The findings in this study can be adopted in making national or regional OB/GYN workforce allocation policies, but further studies are still needed to reveal the detailed sources of inequality and to provide evidence for local policy-making.