OBJECTIVETo understand the nutrition status of children under three years in rural area of western China and to explore the influencing factors so as to provide reasonable suggestions for policy making.

METHODSUse PPS sampling method to investigate the 13,532 children under three years old. Height and weight were used as nutritional indexes.

RESULTSThe prevalence of stunting (height for age Z-score < -2), underweight (weight for age Z-score < -2) and wasting (weight for height Z-score < -2) were 12.4%,11.8% and 5.7% respectively. Boys, minority and the children from western China had higher prevalence rate. The prevalence rates of the Han nationality children's underweight and stunting were 9.5% and 9.8%, but these rates of the minority children were 15.6% and 16.5% respectively, which were obviously higher than the Han ethnicity children with significant differences between them (P <0.01).The prevalence of malnutrition was rising with age and the peak age of stunting, underweight and wasting appeared at 21 months, 12 months and 15 months, respectively. Compared with growth reference of NCHS/WHO, the HAZ, WAZ and WHZ left moved 0.59,0.60 and 0.26 units which indicated the whole nutritional status of children from program area impaired to some extent. Underweight inclined to have higher two-week prevalence rates of diarrhea and flu than in the normal children,achieving 15.9% and 13.5%, but with significant differences between them (P<0.01). We administered non-conditional logistic regression analysis to identify the influencing factors of malnutrition. Under-6-month children who were not taken care by their mothers showed higher risk of stunting. Over-6-month children stunting had significant relationship with age, gender, sibling order, nationality,maternal educational level,special cooking for children and residential region. Underweight of over-6-month children significantly related to age, nationality, and maternal educational level, yolk supply during 6-8 month old and living region.

CONCLUSIONMalnutrition was really prevalent among children in China,suggesting that intervention should be done according to the influencing factors.