Data · Education & health
Prevalence of stunting, height for age (% of children under 5): Vietnam, 1988–2023
- Latest (2023)
- 18.2 %
- Source
- World Bank
- Code
- SH.STA.STNT.ZS
- Frequency
- Yearly
Definition
Prevalence of stunting is the percentage of children under age 5 whose height for age is more than two standard deviations below the median for the international reference population ages 0-59 months. For children up to two years old height is measured by recumbent length. For older children height is measured by stature while standing. The data are based on the WHO's 2006 Child Growth Standards.
What the series shows
The series runs from 1988 to 2023 (27 years of data). It moved from 61.3 to 18.2 %, a change of -70.3%. The highest value was 61.5 in 1993 and the lowest 18.2 in 2023. The comparison below sets Vietnam against 8 neighbouring economies on the latest available year.
Using it in a thesis
Indicators like this one are typical control or explanatory variables in macro and finance theses: merge the CSV with your other series on the year column, check for missing years before running a regression, and log-transform level variables that grow over time. If you use the series in a panel with other countries, take every country from the same source and vintage so the definitions match. Cite the original publisher, not this site, as shown below.
Values by year
| Year | Value (%) |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 18.2 |
| 2022 | 18.9 |
| 2020 | 19.5 |
| 2019 | 22.4 |
| 2018 | 23.2 |
| 2017 | 23.8 |
| 2016 | 24.3 |
| 2015 | 24.6 |
| 2014 | 24.9 |
| 2013 | 25.9 |
| 2012 | 26.7 |
| 2011 | 27.5 |
| 2010 | 22.7 |
| 2009 | 29.3 |
| 2008 | 30.8 |
| 2007 | 31.7 |
| 2006 | 31.7 |
| 2005 | 33.3 |
| 2004 | 33.7 |
| 2003 | 35.4 |
| 2002 | 37.5 |
| 2000 | 42.9 |
| 1999 | 43.8 |
| 1998 | 42.1 |
| 1994 | 52.5 |
| 1993 | 61.5 |
| 1988 | 61.3 |
Comparison with other countries
| Country | Latest year | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Vietnam | 2023 | 18.2 |
| Thailand | 2022 | 12.4 |
| Indonesia | 2023 | 22.0 |
| Malaysia | 2022 | 21.2 |
| Philippines | 2021 | 26.7 |
| Cambodia | 2021 | 21.9 |
| Laos | 2023 | 32.8 |
| Myanmar | 2018 | 26.7 |
| China | 2017 | 4.8 |
How to cite (APA 7)
World Bank. (2026). Prevalence of stunting, height for age (% of children under 5), Vietnam [Data set]. World Development Indicators. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.STNT.ZS?locations=VN
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Retrieved 2026-11-02. The CSV has one row per period
with the variable name sh_sta_stnt_zs, ready for Stata, R or SPSS.