EVIDENCE REVIEW IN FOCUS

A critical look at interventions in place to address maternal and child nutrition in India

Photo credit Aishwarya Pillai

In this blog post, we share some key findings from POSHAN’s review of evidence-based direct nutrition interventions.

POSHAN reviewed the design documents of two national nutrition programs, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), published literature, grey literature and the program models of 22 NGO programs in order to assess the extent to which existing nutrition programs address the 14 essential nutrition inputs.

The results of the desk review demonstrate that, from a design perspective, ICDS and NRHM together address all of the 14 essential inputs to improve maternal and child nutrition. While a majority of program models implemented by NGOs address essential inputs pertaining to breastfeeding and complementary feeding, few address vitamin A deficiency, pediatric anemia, severe and acute malnutrition (SAM), and none address reducing intestinal parasitic burden and the prevention of anemia. The results of this review further indicate that there is an overwhelming need to build operational evidence to ensure high quality delivery of evidence-based interventions, which already operate at national scale. To conclude, the evidence base around how best to operationalize evidence-based interventions for nutrition in India is weak. Overall, it will be essential to institutionalize documentation and learning processes around nutrition programs to ensure that ongoing efforts to address undernutrition are tapping into the best available evidence and knowledge to ensure the best possible future for India’s children.

Please click on Evidence Review to access the document.