The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

5156.0: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 2:45 PM

Abstract #49705

Community supported nutrition and health day: A strategy to reach the most vulnerable and unreached in 8 states of India

T. Usha Kiran, MSc, Manish Subharwal, Siddarth Agarwal, MBBS, and Deepika Nayar Chaudhery, PhD. Nutrition Sector, CARE India, 27, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, India

CARE in India implements the Integrated Nutrition and Health Project (INHP) in eight states supporting the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) of Government of India with the goal “to improve the health and nutrition status of women and children, especially girls.” A fixed day, fixed site strategy was promoted by INHP, where both nutrition (food as Take Home Ration) and health services were expected to be delivered collectively, and the event was termed as Nutrition and Health Day (NHD). To further improve service coverage, innovations like involving community, interested volunteers and community based organizations to support NHDs and generating social maps for better targeting and monitoring were designed and implemented. NHDs are being regularly held in about 15% of 100,000 village level service units covered under INHP. A quantitative survey in 2001 has shown significant differences in coverage rates in areas with NHDs, as compared to those without NHDs. Comparison of two areas reveals that receipt of supplementary nutrition had improved by 21-27 percentage points; immunization coverage by 13 percentage points and receipt of 100 IFA tablets during pregnancy by 11 percentage points.

Learning Objectives:

Keywords: Community Health Programs, Maternal and Child Health

Related Web page: careindia.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employee

Methodology and Needs Assessment in the Developing World and Abroad

The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA