Integrated program achieves good survival but moderate recovery rates among children with severe acute malnutrition in India.

Background: At any point in time, an average 8 million Indian children suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM).

Objective: This article assesses the effectiveness of an integrated model for the management of SAM (IM-SAM) in India comprising facility- and community-based care and using locally adapted protocols.

Design: Children (n = 2740) were randomly sampled from the 44,017 children aged 6-59 mo admitted to 199 Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers in the state of Madhya Pradesh (1 January to 31 December 2010).