A healthy start, for every child

Highlights

Supporting children at the earliest stages lays the foundation for their long-term health, development, and potential. UNICEF supported babies and mothers by training almost 748,000 health professionals in early essential newborn care. Some of the most vulnerable children live in rural communities. More than 95,000 community health workers received training to deliver high quality early childhood services. Over 290,000 community health workers in 1,212 counties were trained to provide infant and young child feeding counselling.

UNICEF and the China Center for Disease Control (CDC) developed the China’s Children’s Environmental Health Surveillance Interactive Platform, for sharing data on environmental hazards, exposure, and disease. UNICEF also supported the drafting of China’s first report on children’s environmental health.

Child overweight and obesity rates are on the rise. UNICEF and the China Nutrition Society developed the Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM), ensuring it is in line with WHO principles and the context in China. The NPM is a benchmark in identifying pre-packaged food high in salt, sugar or fat, and it will be used to regulate unhealthy food marketing to children in China.

UNICEF’s ‘Fix My Food’ campaign pulled together the views of 1,300 young people in China on creating a healthy food environment. The views were shared with the government.

UNICEF initiated the Adolescent Mental Health and Development Programme. A service package and a peer-support toolkit are being tested in 100 pilot schools from 10 provinces, aiming to reach over 100,000 students by 2025.