A comparison of well-child care guidelines in China and the United States

Abstract

Objective To describe well-child care guidelines in the United States and compare it to China's guidelines so as to inform child health policymakers and providers in developing improvements for China well-child care practices.Methods We used a multistage approach to identify features of well-child care guidelines.The following methods are used:literature review,key informant interviews,site visits to both China and the United States and summarization of experiences.The differences and similarities of the contents were compared.Results Both China and the United States emphasize the importance of well-child care and the basic contents such as immunization,growth monitoring,lab screening and health education are similar for well-child care from 0 to 6 years old.Differences exist in that China's well-child guidelines are a set of general principles,without specific instructions,and only cover children from 0 to 6 years old.There are no guidelines in China for children older than 6 years old.Conclusions China needs a more detailed well-child care guidelines with specific instructions for all-aged children; despite some similarities,there are applicable learnings from that of the United States' for improvement in China's. Key words: Child health services; Guidelines; China; United States