Commonly Applied Social-Behavior Change Techniques Used in Complementary Feeding Programs in Low and Middle Income Countries: A Scoping Review
Webb, Girard A., E. Waugh, S. Sawyer, et al. Maternal and Child Nutrition. August 6, 2019
- Nutrition and Health Systems
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Research Articles
An examination of literature on complementary feeding interventions in lower- and middle-income countries since 2000, this scoping review considered 64 behavior change interventions. Across the interventions, authors identified 28 out of a possible 93 behavior change techniques (BCTs), estimating effectiveness ratios for each. Certain BCTs showed promise and warrant further evaluation. Reviewers called for further implementation science research around BCTs and more publically available intervention details on the use of BCTs to optimize and scale up complementary feeding interventions.
Community Health Workers in Humanitarian Settings: Scoping Review
Miller, Nathan P., Farid Bagheri Ardestani, Hannah Sarah Dini, et al. Journal of Global Health, December 2020
Research Articles
This wide-ranging review finds that community health workers (CHWs) often carry out critical emergency response activities but face security threats and psychological trauma. Community selection of CHWs is crucial for acceptance and high service utilization. Providing buffer stocks to CHWs, storing commodities in decentralized locations, addressing bottlenecks to CHW service delivery, and completing rigorous assessments of primary health care interventions are critical.
Community-Orientated Primary Health Care: Exploring the Interface between Community Health Worker Programmes, the Health System and Communities in South Africa
Malatji, Hlologelo, Frances Griffiths, Jane Goudge. PLOS Global Public Health, February 2023
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
Research Articles
In this study, community health workers (CHWs), CHW supervisors, community representatives, and others in South Africa reported that services were comprehensive but that inadequate training, supervision, and mentoring as well as socio-economic issues impacted service effectiveness. A multidisciplinary approach to care has improved CHW knowledge and skills but more funding for training, supervision, supplies, and salaries is critical.
Comparing Costs and Cost‐Efficiency of Platforms for Micronutrient Powder (MNP) Delivery to Children in Rural Uganda
Schott, Whitney, Belinda Richardson, Emily Baker, et al. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, June 2021
Research Articles
While community-based micronutrient powder delivery costs are higher than facility-based delivery, they are more cost-efficient per child reached and produce better outcomes.
Comparing Delivery Channels to Promote Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Bangladesh
International Food Policy Research Institute, December 2022
- Capacity Strengthening
Reports and Tools
Female nutrition workers and male agricultural extension workers experienced an increase in nutrition-related knowledge, household and individual diet quality, and women’s empowerment. Training men to deliver nutrition messages could help address shortages of female extension workers and provide greater opportunities to scale and promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
Compendium of Nutrition Intervention Coverage Indicators & Questions for Household Surveys
Data for Decisions to Expand Nutrition Transformation, August 2021
Reports and Tools
The document provides indicator definitions and accompanying questions for nutrition interventions across the maternal, newborn, and child health continuum of care.
Complementary Feeding in Emergencies Programming—Myanmar Case Study
Emergency Nutrition Network, November 2022
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
Reports and Tools
This USAID Advancing Nutrition report provides examples of what is possible at the humanitarian-development nexus when influenced by the performance of multi-sector integrated policies, coordination, funding, and program implementation. Practitioners should continue to assess the potential for integrating these interventions into humanitarian planning efforts. This report is available in English and French.
Complementary Feeding in Emergencies Programming—Yemen Case Study
Emergency Nutrition Network, November 2022
Reports and Tools
This USAID Advancing Nutrition case study argues that donors and decision makers need a greater understanding of the importance of complementary feeding and that the humanitarian response must be balanced to improve and scale both preventive and curative nutrition efforts. Integration with other sectors, such as food security and livelihoods, may enhance opportunities to engage men.
A Complementary Feeding and Play Intervention Improves the Home Environment and Mental Development among Toddlers in Rural India
Fernandez Rao, Sylvia, Margaret E. Bentley, Nagalla Balakrishna, et al. Maternal & Child Nutrition, December 2020
Research Articles
A responsive complementary feeding and play intervention delivered through home visits benefits children's mental development and the caregiving environment. Mothers with a high school education can deliver behavior change communication if trained and supervised.
Complexity-Aware Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning for Social and Behavior Change Interventions
CORE Group, June 2021
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Reports and Tools
Contextual, temporal, and interpretive complexities impact most social and behavior change interventions. These complexity-aware tools include an advocacy brief; a core set of indicators related to collaborating, learning, and adapting; and a checklist to improve consistency and completeness of intervention documentation.
Comprehensive Nutrient Gap Assessment (CONGA): Micronutrient Gaps During the Complementary Feeding Period
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, UNICEF, March 2021
Reports and Tools
The Comprehensive Nutrient Gap Assessment tool identifies micronutrient gaps and provides guidance about how to use various types of evidence to assess the significance of nutrient gaps in a given population as well as the best sources of those nutrients. This briefing series summarizes the results of CONGAs of the complementary feeding period in multiple countries in Eastern and Southern Africa and South Asia.
Concentration and Crises: Exploring the Deep Roots of Vulnerability in the Global Industrial Food System
Clapp, Jennifer. The Journal of Peasant Studies, October 2022
- Food Systems
Research Articles
The global food system relies on a small number of staple grains produced by a small number of countries and traded by a small number of firms in highly financialized commodity markets prone to volatility. This paper explores these dynamics as they relate to worldwide food crises and food systems transformation.
Conceptualising and Assessing Food Affordability
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, March 2022
- Food Systems
Reports and Tools
Affordability measures should incorporate a portion of savings, include all income sources, and consider reallocating funds spent on less healthy foods to healthier foods. Introducing interventions to change perceptions about the values of foods, reducing the scarcity mindset, and enhancing access to financial institutions could improve nutritious food affordability.
Conceptualizing Sustainable Diets in Vietnam: Minimum Metrics and Potential Leverage Points
Mayton, Holly, Ty Beal, Julia Rubin, Alejandra Sanchez, et al. Journal of Food Policy, Vol. 91, February 2020
- Food Systems
- Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Research Articles
Addressing the need for clearly defined and agreed upon intervention points that can effectively enhance diet sustainability in low- and middle-income countries, the authors of this paper worked to develop a conceptual framework for sustainable diets in Vietnam. The framework outlines 235 unique indicators that fall within eight domains: (1) food production, (2) food processing and distribution, (3) food loss and waste, (4) food access and consumption, (5) food and water safety, (6) nutrition, (7) sociopolitical context, and (8) environmental impact. It also identifies key leverage points across sectors related to food quality, agricultural chemical usage, and food waste, among others.
Note: This article is behind a paywall.
Conducting Formative Research on Adolescent Nutrition: Key Considerations
USAID, September 2021
- Nutrition and Health Systems
Reports and Tools
Involving adolescents in designing programs and efforts to inform policy allows them to make decisions about their own well-being and ensures the applicability of results in communities. This guidance includes a list of participatory nutrition research methods and pretesting resources.
Connecting through Crises: Opportunities and Challenges in Strengthening Informal Support Networks
ResilienceLinks, October 2022
- Capacity Strengthening
- Food Systems
Events
The panel discussed research findings and explored how donors, policymakers, and practitioners can strengthen informal support networks to build resilience in communities vulnerable to crises.
The Conscious Food Systems Alliance
United Nations Development Programme, January 2023
- Knowledge Management
Reports and Tools
The Conscious Food Systems Alliance convenes a Community of Practice and Learning where individuals and organizations can connect, exchange knowledge, and collaborate to build conscious food systems. It pioneered the application of consciousness approaches and practices supported by research and learning frameworks.
Considerations for Monitoring School Health and Nutrition Programs
Schult, Linda, Julie Ruel-Bergeron. Frontiers in Public Health, July 2021
Research Articles
Authors provide an overview of how to select monitoring indicators across a school health and nutrition (SHN) program's logical framework and discuss how SHN programs must adapt when schools are closed.
The Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard: A Call for Better Advocacy and Accountability for Nutrition Investments in Africa
African Union, February 2019
- Knowledge Management
Reports and Tools
Recommendations to tackle malnutrition in all its forms include increasing budgetary allocations for multi-sectoral nutrition plans, enforcing compliance with mandatory food fortification legislation, increasing women’s and girls’ empowerment, and ensuring timely collection of high-quality data.
Contributing Factors to the Looming Food Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa: Opportunities for Policy Insight
Ouko, Kevin Okoth, Modock Oketch Odiwuor. Cogent Social Sciences, February 2023
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
Research Articles
Addressing food crises caused by climate change, COVID-19, and the war between Russia and Ukraine requires providing support to those impacted, expanding intra-African food commerce, increasing poverty reduction initiatives and strategic food reserves, and improving the monitoring of weather shocks to anticipate future droughts and their impacts.
Coronavirus puts 14 million people at risk of missing meals in Latin America and the Caribbean
WFP, March 2020
- Nutrition in Humanitarian Contexts
Research Articles
This article describes the specific challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean in light of COVID-19. The economic downturn could quadruple levels of food insecurity, identifying women, school-aged children and migrants as the most at-risk groups. To respond to these challenges, authors call for increased social protection measures to meet the basic needs of vulnerable groups.
The Cost of Not Breastfeeding: Global Results from a New Tool
Walters, Dylan D., Linh T. H. Phan, Roger Mathisen. Health Policy and Planning, June 2019
- Nutrition and Health Systems
Research Articles
This tool aggregates data to estimate the human and economic costs of not breastfeeding. Data attributed to not breastfeeding include childhood deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia, childhood obesity, maternal breast and ovarian cancers, and type 2 diabetes. Researchers conservatively estimate total global economic losses to be US $341.3 billion (0.70% of global gross national income) per year due to cognitive losses, health system treatment costs, and future lost earnings.
Counseling Is a Relationship Not Just a Skill: Re-Conceptualizing Health Behavior Change Communication by India’s Accredited Social Health Activists
Ved, Rajani, Kerry Scott, Global Health: Science and Practice, October 2020
- Social and Behavior Change and Gender
Research Articles
The ability of accredited social health activists to improve health outcomes depends on their relationships with families and the support from the health system. Training to improve interpersonal communication and develop strong relationships with community members will improve their efficacy as health behavior change communicators.
Counselling to Improve Maternal Nutrition: Considerations for Programming with Quality, Equity and Scale: A Technical Brief
UNICEF, January 2022
- Nutrition and Health Systems
Reports and Tools
This brief outlines approaches to improve the enabling environment for maternal nutrition counseling. Authors review key considerations for the design of counseling services and strategies to strengthen service delivery platforms and build health worker capacity. They also explore actions to improve women’s access to dietary supplements and nutritious and affordable diets, strategies for delivering counseling services in humanitarian contexts, and approaches to monitoring counseling services. Countries should invest in research to build evidence of how to strengthen the coverage, quality, and equity of counseling in different settings.