USAID Advancing Nutrition develops, curates, packages, and shares multi-sectoral nutrition knowledge to help you stay on top of developments and evidence in global nutrition programming.
Six Household Actions Poster for Smallholder Farming Families (Lishie Endelevu Maisha Mazuri)
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Adolescent Nutrition
This resource was developed under the USAID-funded Lishe Endelevu Activity for a Social and Behavior Change Communication project, which targeted girls 15–19 in Tanzania. Materials were adapted from Growth Through Nutrition (Ethiopia). Resources include a a Swahili language training guide, posters, and games aimed at improving nutritional awareness, knowledge, and skills.
Engaging Family Members in Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition Activities in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries: A Systematic Scoping Review
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Nutrition and Health SystemsSocial and Behavior Change and GenderAdolescent NutritionBreastfeedingInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)
Recent guidelines recommend involving fathers, grandmothers, and other family members in maternal and child nutrition programs, but there is a gap in understanding on how to implement such interventions.
With the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, USAID Advancing Nutrition conducted a series of activities to identify assessments (methods, tools, and metrics) suitable for food environments in LMICs.
Improving Diets Through Innovative Data Analysis and Modeling of Food Fortification: Evidence from Malawi Webinar
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Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
The Micronutrient Action Policy Support project is working with partners in Malawi to use data in innovative ways to inform nutrition policies and programs.
Governments and programmers lack the consistent data on affordability that they need to design effective food systems policies and programs for nutrition. Food Prices for Nutrition aims to bridge this gap by developing metrics on price and food cost for application globally. Examples of current indicators include the cost of nutrient adequacy and cost of recommended diet.
There are a number of indicators and methods available to measure dimensions of food security and diet quality. Data4Diets aims to help program implementers and policymakers in accessing and applying appropriate indicators by providing an online repository of guides, studies, and examples of how indicators have been used to inform diet-related food security policies and programs.
Food Systems and Diets: A Handbook of Essential Policies
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This handbook provides entry points for policy makers for how to shift food systems towards providing safer, affordable, accessible, and nutritious diets.
The Food Systems Dashboard serves as a tool to access and visualize data drawn from multiple sources. Policymakers and programmers can use the Dashboard to compare food systems across regions and countries, track progress on key indicators, and identify and prioritize ways to sustainably improve diets and nutrition in their food systems.
Multiple-Micronutrient Supplementation in Pregnant Adolescents in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and a Meta-Analysis of Individual Participant Data
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Nutrition in Humanitarian ContextsMaternal NutritionMicronutrient Interventions
Multiple-micronutrient (MMN) supplementation reduces low birth weight, preterm birth, and small-for-gestational-age births when compared with iron and folic acid supplementation. Antenatal care policies should prioritize MMN supplementation over iron-folic acid supplementation for all pregnant women, especially adolescents.
42 Policies and Actions to Orient Food Systems Towards Healthier Diets For All
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Food Systems
This report describes 42 potential policy actions that support food systems in delivering nutritious, high-quality diets for all. It draws from recent evidence to outline specific actions that policymakers or programmers can enact across different components of the food system, from production, supply chains, food environments, to consumers.
Webinar Series in Partnership with the DFC Program: Drivers of Food Choice in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Synthesis of Evidence
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Food Security
Presenters discuss drivers of individual and household food choice in changing food environments; next steps for application and scaling; and prominent issues and questions confronting policy, practice, and research at the nexus of food environments, nutrition, and health. This is a series of webinars.
The Social Norms Atlas: Understanding Global Social Norms and Related Concepts
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Infant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Maternal Nutrition
While there is interest and funding to explore how social norms concepts and theory might facilitate social norms change, the success of applying these concepts and theory has been inconsistent. The Social Norms Atlas provides guidance to increase social norms knowledge and strengthen understanding of social norms relevant to particular sectors.
Social Norms in the Gender Digital Divide: USAID Digital Strategy Update
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Adolescent NutritionMaternal Nutrition
Information and communication technology (ICT) provides women with access to information and services that enable time savings, greater security, and freedom of expression and can catalyze economic growth.
If You Don't Find Anything, You Can't Eat-Mining Livelihoods and Income, Gender Roles, and Food Choices in Northern Guinea
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Maternal Nutrition
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) continues to grow in sub-Saharan Africa, but how ASM affects food choices among those living in mining camps is not well understood. Research findings suggest that while artisanal mining may provide women with higher wages, financial benefits are often reduced or constrained by existing gender roles, which impacts household food decision-making.
Effect of Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Interventions with Participatory Videos and Women's Group Meetings on Maternal and Child Nutritional Outcomes in Rural Odisha, India (UPAVAN Trial): A Four-Arm, Observer-Blind, Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial
Women's groups that employ a combination of nutrition-sensitive agriculture videos, nutrition-specific videos, and participatory learning and action cycle meetings improve maternal and child diet quality. While these components have been implemented separately in several low-income settings, scaling them together could increase their impact.
Emergency NutritionFood SecurityInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Maternal NutritionMicronutrient InterventionsResilience
This tool provides guidance for implementing partners to apply a nutrition lens to the selection of appropriate food assistance modalities and presents considerations in alignment with the four Modality Decision Tool concepts of appropriateness, feasibility, objective, and cost.
Lessons Learned and Recommendations from the Humanitarian-Development Nexus for Nutrition: Case Studies
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COVID-19Emergency Nutrition
Nutrition policies, plans, and programs have often not been adequately risk informed. Case studies examine how humanitarian and development partners can bridge divisions that exist and reinforce a humanitarian-development nexus to balance short-term responses with longer-term solutions. A French version is also available.
Maintaining Essential Nutrition Services to Underfive Children in Yemen: A Programmatic Adaptation Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
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COVID-19Emergency NutritionInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)
The WHO has adapted the services it provides within the nutrition surveillance system (NSS), therapeutic feeding centers (TFC), and isolation units (IU) to respond to the pandemic. The Yemen case study discussed in this article may serve as a roadmap for other countries that intend to undertake similar adaptations.
Delivering Nutrition Interventions to Women and Children in Conflict Settings: A Systematic Review
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Adolescent NutritionBreastfeedingEmergency NutritionInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Maternal NutritionMicronutrient InterventionsNutrition Assessment, Counseling, and Support (NACS)
This review synthesizes data on the delivery, coverage, and effectiveness of nutrition programs in areas of conflict. Available studies focus on micronutrient supplementation, nutrition assessments, and interventions for young children and pregnant and lactating women, but there is little research evaluating coverage or effectiveness of nutrition interventions.
Indicators for Assessing Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices: Definitions and Measurement Methods
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BreastfeedingInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)
This document provides new and updated indicators to assess infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices at the household level and tools for collecting and calculating the indicators.