Relationship between Anemia and Academic Performance in Chinese Primary School Students: Evidence from a Large National Survey

Table 4

Mediation effect analysis of factors mediating the association between anemia and average test score (China, 2018).

Variable	Mediation analysis
	Model 13	Model 14	Model 15	Model 16
Anemia	−1.57 (−2.93, −0.22)^a	−1.92 (−3.33, −0.50)^a	−2.00 (−3.43, −0.58)^b	−2.17 (−3.59, −0.75)^b
Cognition	0.50 (0.46, 0.53)^c	—	—	—
Body mass index (kg/m^2)	—	−0.16 (−0.28, −0.05)^b	—	—
Sleep duration	—	—	−0.67 (−1.00, −0.34)^c	—
CESD score	—	—	—	−0.52 (−0.58, −0.46)^c
	Mediation effect estimation
Total effect	−1.96 (−3.35, −0.28)	−1.90 (−3.25, −0.35)	−2.02 (−3.56, −0.50)	−2.20 (−3.61, −0.54)
Indirect effect	−0.39 (−0.78, −0.00)	0.02 (−0.01, 0.08)	−0.01 (−0.08, 0.03)	−0.02 (−0.25, 0.24)
Percent of indirect effect	19.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.9%

Models 13–16 were based on the dependent variable of average test score, adjusted for factors such as sex, age, Hukou type, only child, self-assessed economic status, highest educational qualification of parents, number of books in the family, parents’ educational expectations, learning pressure score, good relationships with other students, teacher-student relationship score, and fixed effects at the school level. This table only reported the coefficients of the variables related to anemia and mediation. ^a; ^b; ^c.