Sustainable Undernutrition Reduction in Ethiopia

Summary

The causes of malnutrition are complex and addressing the problem requires integrated action among various sectors. Globally, much attention has been given to nutrition-specific interventions to address the immediate causes of undernutrition. But undernutrition prevalence is decreasing at a very slow rate. Nutrition-specific interventions address the immediate determinants of child undernutrition, such as inadequate food and nutrient intake, but do not consider the underlying causes such as food insecurity, poverty, and limited access to clean water, hygienic environments, and health services.

Ethiopia still has a high prevalence of undernutrition. The current situation of food insecurity and malnutrition in Ethiopia has pressurized the government in pursuing a number of nutritional-sensitive interventions to increase diversified food production and consumption like the Sustainable Undernutrition Reduction Program (SURE).

This study aims to investigate whether joint nutrition specific and sensitive interventions can lead to improved household food security, dietary diversification and improved nutritional status in Ethiopian mothers and their young children.

The study will be a community based longitudinal design and will use multistage cluster sampling at the Kebele and household levels in Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) regions.

Households will be randomly selected from the intervention and the non-intervention arms at Kebele level, with 15 households per Kebele. The same children whose baseline are available who were 0-23 months of age at the time of the baseline assessment in 2016 will be recruited as well as their mothers. This represents approximately third of the total sample size at baseline.

Conditions

• Stunting
• Dietary Deficiency
• Anemia

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Standard programme

The control arm will receive national standard programme for women and children under the age of 2 years. This includes 1) national nutrition and health care including iron \& folic acid (IFA) supplementation in pregnancy; 2) early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months of age; 3) timely introduction of liquid and semi-solid complementary foods; and 4) diversified complementary foods.

BEHAVIORAL

SURE intervention

The SURE package includes: 1) promoting diversified agriculture; 2) promoting infant and young child feeding practices; 3) women empowerment in decision making related to agriculture, food and health; and 4) enhanced food security and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene ("WASH") practices.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ethiopian Public Health Institute

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University Ghent

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Stefaan De Henauw, Md. PhD · University Ghent

• Souheila Abbeddou, MSc. PhD · University Ghent

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

4 Years

Max Age

6 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-12-28

Primary Completion

2021-03-13

Completion

2021-03-13

Countries

• Ethiopia

Study Locations