BACKGROUND Molluscum contagiosum (MC) is a common skin condition that primarily affects children, a common reason for presenting in primary care and is commonly seen in children presenting with other conditions in primary and secondary care. It is usually asymptomatic but can present with pain, pruritus, erythema and bacterial superinfection. Aim. To synthesize the current epidemiology of MC. D...

OBJECTIVES Health care professionals have recommended the use of age-related body mass index (BMI) to evaluate obesity in children. Until now, no age-related reference curves for BMI have been reported in China. Presented here are age-related BMI percentile curves for children aged 0~18 years in Shaanxi, China, 1995. METHODS The Third Nationwide Growth Survey was performed in 1995 and from th...

In the present study, we investigated nutritional status and health-related factors in a multistage cluster sample of 3119 Thai urban and rural children aged 0·5-12·9 years. In a subsample, blood samples were collected for the measurement of Hb, transferrin receptor, vitamin A and vitamin D concentrations. The prevalence of stunting and underweight was higher in rural children than in urban chi...

PURPOSE To determine trends in utilization and off-label use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 4000 in children and to determine the prevalence of constipation. METHODS Retrospective cross-sectional analyses were conducted from 1997 to 2007 in a French health care database comprising general practitioners and pediatricians. Patients prescribed PEG 4000 (Forlax(®); Ipsen Pharma, Paris, France) were...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the burden of disease attributable to vitamin A deficiency in children aged 0 - 4 years and pregnant women aged 15 - 49 years in South Africa in 2000. DESIGN The framework adopted for the most recent World Health Organization comparative risk assessment (CRA) methodology was followed. Population-attributable fractions were calculated from South African Vitamin A Consult...

Nutritional status of 380 hospitalised children aged from 1 month to 5 years with liver disease was evaluated in a single paediatric centre. The total prevalence of stunting (height-for-age Z (HAZ) < -2), underweight (weight-for-age Z (WAZ) < -2) and wasting (weight-for-height Z < -2) was 9·8, 9·0 and 7·9 %, respectively. The overall nutritional risk (-2 ≤ Z < -1) of stunting, underweight and w...

Obesity prevention guidelines recommend children eat ≥ 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, view ≤ 2 h of screen time, participate in 1 h of physical activity, and consume 0 sugar-sweetened beverages daily, commonly known as '5-2-1-0'. We sought to determine: the extent to which preschool-aged children attending child care meet these guidelines, predictors of attainment, and associations of att...

Household air pollution (HAP) mainly from cooking fuel is one of the major causes of respiratory illness and deaths among young children in low and middle-income countries like Pakistan. This study investigates for the first time the association between HAP from cooking fuel and under-five mortality using the 2013 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) data. Multi-level logistic regressi...

OBJECTIVE The present study analysed the impact of using the 2006 WHO Child Growth Standards ('the WHO standards') compared with the 1977 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) international growth reference ('the NCHS reference') on the calculated prevalence of chronic malnutrition in children aged 6·0-59·9 months. DESIGN Anthropometric data were collected as part of a cross-sectional ...

Smoke from cooking in the kitchen is one of the world's leading causes of premature child death, claiming the lives of 500,000 children under five annually. This study analyses the role of outdoor cooking and the prevalence of respiratory diseases among children under five years by means of probit regressions using information from 41 surveys conducted in 30 developing countries from Asia, Afri...