ABSTRACT DIGEST ON MATERNAL AND CHILD NUTRITION RESEARCH – ISSUE 27

Click HERE to download PDF

We are delighted to present another issue of Abstract Digest with a collection of interesting and insightful articles on various aspects of maternal and child nutrition, from around the world, with relevance to India. Four articles in this issue have used different rounds of the National Family Health Survey data to examine a range of issues including trends in mortality rates, developing an algorithm for predicting newborns’ risk of undernutrition in the first 5 years of life, estimating burden of malnutrition, and coverage and equity of Integrated Child Development Services program.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Using three rounds of National Family Health Survey data (NFHS – 1, 3, and 4), Bhatia and colleagues (2019) analyzed the patterns and trends in the mortality rates of infants and children under the age of 5 in India and concluded that while a majority of the states have witnessed over 50 percent reduction in both infant and under-5 mortality rates, there is huge inter-state variability.
• Using the NFHS-4 data, Soni and Allison (2019) developed an algorithm that can be used at the time of delivery to characterise newborns’ risk of undernutrition in the first 5 years of life.
• Leroy and Frongillo (2019) critically examined the current evidence and understanding of mechanisms pertaining to linear growth retardation and stunting and multiple outcomes. The authors addressed the confusion and misunderstanding between using linear growth retardation and stunting as markers of other outcomes vis-à-vis as outcomes of their own intrinsic value.
• Varghese and colleagues (2019) used NFHS-4 data to examine the prevalence of a comprehensive list of dual burdens of malnutrition in individuals and households across the 36 states and 640 districts of India and concluded that while dual burdens of anemia, stunting, and underweight are prevalent, there is no evidence of clustering of overweight with other forms of malnutrition in India.
• In a prospective observational cohort study of 72,750 pregnant women, Patel and colleagues (2019) documented the prevalence of anaemia and low BMI among pregnant women and found that 90 percent of women were anemic and a third were underweight and maternal anaemia is associated with enhanced risk of stillbirth, neonatal deaths and low birth weight (LBW) in babies.
• Bhatnagar and colleagues (2019) presented a cohort study protocol of pregnant women in India to identify clinical, epidemiologic, genomic, epigenomic, proteomic, and microbial correlates, discover molecular-risk markers by using an integrative -omics approach and generate a risk-prediction algorithm for preterm birth.
• Ghosh and colleagues (2019) proposed a new Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) for iron in Indian women. Based on the new EAR, the prevalence of risk of dietary iron inadequacy in women of reproductive age is much lower than previously thought and should be used to evaluate with precision the benefits and risks of iron fortification and supplementation policies.
• Communicable diseases still account for nearly half of deaths in India in children aged 5–14 years unlike in Brazil, China, and Mexico (Fadel et al. 2019).
• Using data from multiple datasets Azzopardi and colleagues (2019) examined changes in adolescent health and wellbeing from 1990 to 2016 and presented country-level estimates for indicators pertaining to health outcomes, health risks, and social determinants of health. The authors found that although the disease burden declined in many settings, in 2016, adolescents were living in multi-burden countries and faced a heavy and complex diseases burden.
• India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Diabetes Collaborators (2018) examined the prevalence of diabetes, its disease burden, and its risk factors across the states of India from 1990 to 2016 under the Global Burden of Diseases project and found that the increase in health loss from diabetes since 1990 in India was the highest among major noncommunicable diseases. The group recognized the state-level differences and called for policy action to control “potentially explosive public health situation”.
• Responding to a cluster-randomised trial by Humphrey and colleagues (2019) and an accompanying comment by Maleta and Manary (2019), Russell and Azzopardi (2019) have argued that WASH remains a crucial intervention for child health and development and is central to sustainable development for three key reasons.
• In a cross-country study linking panel data on government distortions to agriculture incentives and the demographic health surveys, Adjaye-Gbewonyo and colleagues (2019) examined associations between government policies on agricultural trade prices and child nutrition outcomes, and found that government assistance to tradable agriculture was associated with small but significant improvements in child nutritional status.
• Using India’s fourth District Level Health Survey (DLHS-4) data and Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite data on fire occurrence, Chakrabarti and colleagues (2019) estimated the burden of acute respiratory infection due to agricultural crop-residue burning (ACRB). The authors found that eliminating ACRB would avert 14.9 million disability-adjusted life years lost per year.
• Chakrabarti and colleagues (2019) investigated coverage and equity of India’s Integrated Child Development Services programme, before and after the programme was universalized and found that while the coverage improved between 2006 and 2016, sub-national variability remains, and the poorest quintile of the population is still left behind.
• Scott and colleagues (2019) conducted a review of three databases for published research on India’s accredited social health activist (ASHA) community health worker (CHW) programme and found that the literature highlights small-scale innovations and showcases the program’s challenges at scale in the context of the health system.
• Oliver and Cairney (2019) conducted a systematic review and distilled eight recommendations for academics on the dos and don'ts of influencing policy.

Enjoy reading!