ABSTRACT DIGEST ON MATERNAL AND CHILD NUTRITION RESEARCH – ISSUE 31

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In the last issue of Abstract Digest for this year, we present to you a collection of articles on various outcomes, determinants and interventions related to maternal and child nutrition, from around the world and India, in particular. Quite a few India-focused studies included in this issue have a common data source – the fourth round of National Family Health Survey, conducted during 2015-16. Here are some of the highlights:

• Reporting from the WHO–UNICEF Technical Expert Advisory Group on Nutrition Monitoring, de Onis and colleagues (2019) re-examined the classification of the prevalence thresholds for stunting, wasting and overweight, and recommended to replace those in current use with the revised prevalence thresholds, as presented in this paper.
• Using data collected in five survey waves between the ages of 1 to 15 years for children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, Gausman and colleagues (2019) compared the stunting trajectories and found that children become newly stunted, recover, and falter throughout childhood and into early adolescence.
• Using data from the fourth round of India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4, 2015-16):
  • Liou and colleagues (2019) assessed the substantial burden of child malnutrition across all districts in India by examining geospatial variation in the overall prevalence in conjunction with wealth disparity.
  • In a cross-sectional study, Karlsson and colleagues (2019) explored the independent association of each item used to construct the Demographic and Health Surveys’ wealth index with diverse child health outcomes.
  • Rodgers and colleagues (2019) explored the within and between- population variations in child undernutrition, as measured by anthropometric status and hemoglobin level across all states and union territories and presented three salient findings from this comprehensive assessment.
• Using data from the fourth round of District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-4, 2012-13), Mishra and colleagues (2019) studied the extent to which context at difference population levels may influence chronic disease symptoms and outcomes across the general population of adults in India.
• In a cohort study, Prost and colleagues (2019) found that in rural Jharkhand and Odisha in eastern India, the incidence of acute malnutrition among children aged 6–18 months was high, but case fatality following severe acute malnutrition (SAM) was 1.2 percent, much lower than the 10–20 percent estimated by WHO.
• Lee and colleagues (2019) explored how three indicators of social capital (i.e., group membership, social support and cognitive social capital and specific types within each type) are associated with infant birth weight across three low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs): India, Peru and Vietnam.
• Wang and colleagues (2019) applied the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) to a global dietary database to assess dietary quality among adults in 190 countries/territories, and concluded that global dietary quality is slowly improving, but remains far from optimal and varies across countries; improvements in dietary quality from the current global diet to the reference healthy diet have the potential to reduce mortality rates substantially.
• Luo and colleague (2019) developed a new statistical method which uses single-day dietary data and an external within-person to between-person variance ratio to estimate population distributions of usual intake of nearly daily consumed foods and nutrients.
• Through an analysis of the Indian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2015–2016 data, Onyeneho and colleagues (2019) revealed that nutritional intake, maternal health and educational statuses as well as household wealth are the major determinants of childhood anemia in India.
• A study by Young and colleagues (2019) provided insights into the multiple factors that influence EIBF, prelacteal feeding, and EBF in Uttar Pradesh, India, and re-emphasised that supporting breastfeeding truly takes a village.
• In a randomised controlled, superiority trial, undertaken in Haryana, India, Mazumder and colleagues (2019) assessed the effect of community-initiated kangaroo mother care provided to babies weighing 1500–2250 g on neonatal and infant survival.
• Gram and colleagues (2019) conducted a mixed- methods systematic review of mechanisms, enablers and barriers to health promotion through community mobilisation, and uncovered a large number of possible mechanisms, enablers and barriers, ranging from group participation to institutional linkage, from community power relations to staff and resource management.
• Hazraa and colleagues (2019) conducted a quasi-experimental study of a large-scale SHG programme in Uttar Pradesh, India, and concluded that disparities in maternal and newborn health behaviours declined with the efforts by SHGs through behaviour change communication intervention.
• S. and colleagues (2019) have presented the scenario or context prior to layering of women’s nutrition interventions on National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) platforms by project Swabhimaan in three eastern Indian states — Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha – and shared findings on women’s empowerment, nutrition status, household food security and use of maternal health services from baseline survey of project Swabhimaan, as the initiative tests the effectiveness of its service delivery model in improving these variables.
• Carmichael and colleagues (2019) evaluated the impact of a mHealth intervention, which included a mobile-based tool for frontline workers (FLWs) of the health and the Integrated Child Development Services and found that the intervention increased coordination among the workers, increased FLW home visits, increased skin-to-skin care, early initiation of breastfeeding, and age appropriate complementary feeding.
• Looking forward to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-era, the Indian Council of Medical Research and The INCLEN Trust International conducted a national research priority setting exercise for maternal, child, newborn health, and maternal and child nutrition, using the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method. Wazny and colleagues (2019) have reported the results for child health research in India for 2016-2025.
• Scott and colleagues (2019) have presented findings from cognitive testing of a respectful maternity care (RMC) measurement tool for use in rural northern India and reflected on the difficulties associated with using quantitative surveys in populations unaccustomed to this type of interaction and on measuring internationally determined domains of RMC among diverse populations.

This comes with season’s greetings and good wishes for 2020 - enjoy reading!