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Secular trends and urban–rural disparities in the median age at menarche among Chinese han girls from 1985 to 2019

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Abstract

Background

Menarche is a substantial milestone of female puberty. Timing of age at menarche is considered the key to understanding the potential linkages with women’s health outcomes later in life. This study aimed to explore the secular trends and urban‒rural disparities in the median age at menarche among Chinese Han girls from 1985 to 2019.

Methods

Data were extracted from the 1985, 1995, 2005, 2014, and 2019 Chinese National Surveys on Students’ Constitution and Health, which were nationally representative cross-sectional studies, and a total of 173,535 Han girls aged 9–18 years were examined. Girls were asked whether menarche had occurred. The median age at menarche was estimated by probit analysis. Z tests were used to compare the differences between survey years and between urban and rural areas.

Results

The median age at menarche among Chinese Han girls decreased from 13.37 years in 1985 to 12.00 years in 2019, and the overall decrease was more significant in rural areas (1.77 years) than in urban areas (0.99 years). The average five-year change in the decrease in the median age at menarche showed an accelerating and then slowing pace; and it was observed similarly in both urban and rural areas. The urban‒rural disparities shrank from 0.64 years in 1985 to 0.44 years in 1995, then to 0.27 years in 2005, 0.24 years in 2014, and finally to − 0.14 years in 2019.

Conclusions

The median age at menarche among Chinese Han girls continued to decline from 1985 to 2019 but at a slowing pace in the last five years. Urban‒rural disparities gradually narrowed. Sexual and reproductive health education and interventions to prevent the decline in the age of menarche are needed, especially in rural areas.

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Data availability

The data analyzed in this study are subject to the following licenses/restrictions: All individual (de-identified) participant data collected in the surveys can be shared with investigators whose proposed use of the data has been approved by an independent review committee identified for this purpose by contacting the corresponding author. Proposals should be directed to songyi@bjmu.edu.cn.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support from all team members and the participating students, parents, teachers, and local education and health staff in the program. And we would like to acknowledge Prof. Patrick W.C. Lau for proofreading the manuscript.

Funding

The present study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation (82273654 to Y.S.)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, No.38 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China

    Ning Ma, Di Shi, Jia-Jia Dang, Pan-Liang Zhong, Yun-Fei Liu, Shan Cai, Yan-Hui Dong, Pei-Jin Hu, Jun Ma & Yi Song

  2. National Health Commission Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health, Beijing, 100191, China

    Ning Ma, Di Shi, Jia-Jia Dang, Pan-Liang Zhong, Yun-Fei Liu, Shan Cai, Yan-Hui Dong, Pei-Jin Hu, Jun Ma & Yi Song

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  1. Ning Ma
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  2. Di Shi
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  9. Jun Ma
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Contributions

NM: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing; YS: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Writing—review & editing; DS, JD, PZ, YL, SC, YD, PH, and JM: Writing—review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yi Song.

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Conflict of interest

No financial or non-financial benefits have been received or will be received from any party related directly or indirectly to the subject of this article.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Medical Research Ethics Committee of the Peking University Health Science Center (IRB00001052 -19095).

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Ma, N., Shi, D., Dang, JJ. et al. Secular trends and urban–rural disparities in the median age at menarche among Chinese han girls from 1985 to 2019. World J Pediatr 19, 1162–1168 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12519-023-00723-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12519-023-00723-9

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