Improving Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation Among Pregnant Women: An Implementation Science Approach in East-Central Uganda.

Introduction: To address maternal iron-deficiency anemia and low uptake of iron and folic acid supplementation (IFAS) among antenatal care (ANC) clinic attendees in East-Central Uganda, the Anemia Implementation Science Initiative embedded enhanced quality improvement (QI) activities into an integrated health project utilizing QI methodologies.

Methods: To address 2 bottlenecks of stock-outs and inadequate health education for pregnant women during ANC, an enhanced QI intervention was implemented from July 2019 to September 2020 in 2 districts. We conducted a mixed-methods effectiveness quasi-experimental study to assess whether the intervention increased the availability of IFAS in the intervention districts.

Operationalizing Implementation Science in Nutrition: The Implementation Science Initiative in Kenya and Uganda.

Background: Implementation science (IS) has the potential to improve the implementation and impact of policies, programs, and interventions. Most of the training, guidance, and experience has focused on implementation research, which is only 1 part of the broader field of IS. In 2018, the Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition borrowed concepts from IS in health to develop a broader and more integrated conceptual framework, adapted to the particular case of nutrition and with language and concepts more familiar to the nutrition community: it is called the IS in Nutrition (ISN) framework.