1. U RBAN VS R URAL : D OES THE ENVIRONMENT COUNT IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT ? First author: Tanase Elena Ionela Coauthors: Armean Iulia, Otvos Moldovan Andrada, Andrei Ioana Coordinators: Conf. Dr. Pascanu Ionela, Dr. Pop Raluca 1

2. I NTRODUCTION The environment has been considered an important factor influencing children's nutrition and growth (1,3). Children living in urban areas are often better off than their rural counterparts thanks to higher standards of health, protection, education and sanitation (2). 2

3. to assess the differences among children from urban and rural environments with focus on auxologic parameters. AIM 3

4. M ATERIAL AND METHOD Type of study: cross-sectional Sample :  random sample of 1168 children  between 6-14 years  from 4 rural and 4 urban schools in Mures County  Timeframe: November 2013 to January 2014. 4

5. Variables analyzed :  Age  Sex  Environment  Tanner stage  age at menarche SD scores (calculated with GrowthAnalyzer) for weight, BMI, waist, height, arm span, head circumference Statistical analysis used M.O. Excel and GraphPad InStat v.3.06 with a level of significance of α=0.05. 5

6. R ESULTS 1 6

7. Mean – 5.79% 7 R ESULTS 2

8. 8 R ESULTS 3

9. 9 RESULTS 4 RR 1.02, IC 95% 0.88-1.2, p=0.76

10. 10 RESULTS 5 p<0.001 The urban environment presents a higher risk of short stature (RR 2.6, CI 95% 2.01-3.36, p<0.001),

11. 11 RESULTS 6

12. D ISCUSSIONS Even though some studies state a better nutritional status of urban children our study found differences of smaller magnitude. (1, 3) Compared to other developing countries, the environment had no influence on the breastfeeding period, or age at puberty onset.(2) In contrast to other studies we found higher incidence of short stature in urban areas (3) Study limitations – missing data; outdated growth references (?). 12

13. C ONCLUSIONS For our region the environment has significant influence on height. Weight and pubertal onset is not significantly influenced by the environment. Maybe, the previous described differences between rural and urban areas need to be reconsidered. 13

14. R EFERENCES 1: Brown, K. H., K. G. Dewey, and L. H. Allen. 1998. Complementary feeding of young children in developing countries: A review of current scientific knowledge. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 2: Lisa C. Smith, Marie T. Ruel and Aida Ndiaye. 2005 Why Is Child Malnutrition Lower in Urban Than in Rural Areas? Evidence from 36 Developing Countries. Great Britain. World Development Vol. 33 3: Hong Liu, Hai Fang, Zhong Zhao. 2012. Urban-Rural Disparities of Child Health and Nutritional Status in China from 1989 to 2006. Germany. IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) 14

15. T HANK YOU ! 15