An evaluation of an operations research project to reduce childhood stunting in a food-insecure area in Ethiopia.

Objective: To determine which interventions can reduce linear growth retardation (stunting) in children aged 6-36 months over a 5-year period in a food-insecure population in Ethiopia.

Design: We used data collected through an operations research project run by Save the Children UK: the Child Caring Practices (CCP) project. Eleven neighbouring villages were purposefully selected to receive one of four interventions: (i) health; (iii) nutrition education; (iii) water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); or (iv) integrated comprising all interventions.

The effect of body shape on weight-for-height and mid-upper arm circumference based case definitions of acute malnutrition in Ethiopian children.

Background: Nutritional anthropometry surveys from Somalia and Ethiopia have reported that standard weight-for-height z-score (WHZ) and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) case definitions return different estimates of the prevalence of acute malnutrition in pastoralist livelihood zones but similar estimates of the prevalence of acute malnutrition in the agrarian livelihood zones. A study undertaken in Somalia to investigate this finding reported that children from pastoralist livelihood zones tended to have longer limbs and lower SSRs than children from agrarian livelihood zones.

Aim: The present study investigated the relationship between weight-for-height and body shape and the relationship between MUAC and body shape in different populations of Ethiopian children.

Anaemia, iron status and vitamin A deficiency among adolescent refugees in Kenya and Nepal.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of anaemia (haemoglobin<11.0 to 13.0 g dl(-1) depending on age and sex group), iron deficiency (transferrin receptor concentration>8.

An evaluation of the impact of a US$60 million nutrition programme in Bangladesh.

Objective: To compare levels of childhood malnutrition in areas where the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Project had been operational for over 5 years with matched non-project areas, with the purpose of evaluating whether the project had achieved its objective of reducing the prevalence of underweight among children <24 months.

Methods: The study involved an ex-post cross-sectional survey in six thanas (a locality with a population of approximately 200,000-450,000 people) in Bangladesh. Participants were 6,820 households (4,554 in the project areas and 2,266 in the non-project areas) including 7183 children aged 6-59 months selected using a two-stage stratified cluster sampling frame.