Women's and Adolescents' Health and Nutrition

See Also: Assessments, Monitoring & Evaluation; Emergency Nutrition; HIV/AIDS; Household Food Consumption; Infant and Children's Nutrition

Women's nutrition affects a wide range of health and social issues, including pregnancy outcomes, family care, household food security, and local and national economic development. Anemia is the most common form of malnutrition, afflicting an estimated 47 percent of women worldwide, and anemia in pregnancy is one of the leading causes of maternal death. Women in developing countries are also regularly deficient in vitamin A, iodine, and energy. The importance of women's nutrition has not successfully translated into program activities, particularly outside of pregnancy.

FANTA works to heighten the focus on women's and adolescent's nutrition and increase implementation of programming that targets women's health through its technical assistance to USAID missions and PVO partners around the world. FANTA is improving advocacy for women's nutrition through the development of evidence-based models that highlight the consequences of malnutrition for policymakers and other audiences. Work continues on a guide that will facilitate the consistent measurement of women's nutrition indicators and standardize data collection and analysis. The guide will help PVO program managers integrate specific women's nutrition activities into their existing maternal and child health and nutrition (MCHN) frameworks and monitor and evaluate these activities. These initiatives emphasize outputs in advocacy and program implementation and take advantage of FANTA's ability to bring the PVO community and other health and nutrition agencies into the process.

PROFILES [http://www.fantaproject.org/about/profiles.shtml] is a process for nutrition policy analysis and advocacy that uses spreadsheet models to estimate the functional consequences of malnutrition in terms that policymakers understand and care about. To strengthen efforts to improve the nutritional status of women, FANTA supported the development of several additional models that can be used with PROFILES and describe the functional outcomes of women's nutritional status. These models are based on new epidemiological evidence and include the effects of iron deficiency anemia on work productivity, maternal mortality, and perinatal mortality and the effects of vitamin A deficiency on maternal mortality.

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	A brief description of each publication is provided below. By choosing the publication title, you are able to read a detailed description and to download the publication.

1. Dietary Diversity as a Measure of Women's Diet Quality in Resource-Poor Areas (2008): Results from Rural Bangladesh Site Simple population-level indicators are needed to assess the quality of women’s diets and to monitor progress in improving diets. FANTA is working with a number of researchers on a Women’s Dietary Diversity Project (WDDP), whose broad objective is to use existing data sets with dietary intake data from 24-hour recall to analyze the relationship between simple indicators of diet diversity–such as those that could be derived from the new Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)–and dietary quality for women. With funding from USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, the WDDP is analyzing data sets from five countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique and the Philippines. The final report for Bangladesh indicates that food group diversity indicators may be a simple and valid option for population-level assessment and for monitoring progress toward improved micronutrient intakes among women of reproductive age.

2. Essential Nutrition Actions in Public Health Programs in Ethiopia (2008): The Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) package is an approach to expand the coverage of seven affordable and evidence-based actions to improve the nutritional status of women and children, especially those under two years of age. FANTA’s Review of Incorporation of Essential Nutrition Actions into Public Health Programs in Ethiopia found that the approach has been incorporated into the Ethiopia Federal Ministry of Health system and multilateral and NGO programming, however, improved training and other steps are necessary to further institutionalize the approach. The review, requested by USAID/Ethiopia, examined a number of facilitating and inhibiting factors to ENA integration in the context of Ethiopia’s health system.

3. Girl Guides Anemia Prevention Badge Project (2007): FANTA and the Regional Center for Quality of Health Care (RCQHC), in partnership with the African Regional Office of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), designed the Girl Guides Anemia Prevention Badge Project, a program to reach adolescent girls in East and Southern Africa with information and activities on anemia prevention and control. Under the program, Girl Guides (ages 7-18) can earn a badge in anemia prevention through educational programs and community involvement in anemia control. FANTA and RCQHC developed an Anemia Prevention Badge Handbook and Workbook for the Girl Guides as well as a training manual for Girl Guide leaders.

4. Maternal Anemia: A Preventable Killer (2006): Recent meta-analysis showed that Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) is associated with 22% of maternal deaths and 24% of neonatal deaths. The analysis also showed that correcting anemia of any severity reduced the risk of death. This is a new finding and different from the earlier view that only severe anemia is associated with increased mortality. The new brief, "Maternal Anemia: A Preventable Killer," details the causes and consequences of iron deficiency, IDA and anemia, and emphasizes the importance of implementing a package of interventions to address multiple causes of anemia. The brief is a product of a collaboration among USAID's A2Z Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project, ACCESS Program, and Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) Project.

5. Essential Health Actions to Improve Maternal Nutrition in Africa (LINKAGES Project) The health sector can promote and support behaviors to improve maternal nutrition. This publication identifies actions that program managers can integrate into existing health programs. For maximum effect, improving women’s nutrition should begin long before pregnancy. The actions presented here, however, focus on pregnancy, a time when health systems can more easily reach women.

6. Strategies, Policies and Programs to Improve the Nutrition of Women and Girls (2000) This document summarizes the rationale for improving women's nutrition, emphasizing a life cycle approach, the experiences of the various program options that have been put in place, and the opportunities for policies and programs to improve the nutrition of women and girls.

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*Please note that links to these sites do not imply that FANTA supports either the organization listed or the views and content presented.

International Center on Research on Women (ICRW) [http://www.icrw.org]
ICRW's mission is to improve the lives of women in poverty, advance women's equality and human rights, and contribute to the broader economic and social well-being through research, capacity building, and advocacy on issues affecting women's economic, health, and social status in low- and middle-income countries.

The LINKAGES Project [http://www.linkagesproject.org/technical/maternal.php]
LINKAGES is a USAID-funded program providing technical information, assistance, and training to organizations on breastfeeding, related complementary feeding and maternal dietary practices, and the lactational amenorrhea method - a modern postpartum method of contraception for women who breastfeed. LINKAGES's activities related to maternal nutrition include development of several publications, formative research on maternal dietary practices in India, social marketing of a multivitamin for women of reproductive age in Bolivia, promotion of key messages on maternal nutrition for pregnant and lactating women in LINKAGES's country programs, and advocacy at all levels, from the community to international agencies, for attention to this neglected issue.

The Manoff Group [http://www.manoffgroup.com]
The Manoff Group is a woman-owned small business that provides assistance in communications and behavior-centered planning, management and evaluations for health, nutrition, and population projects. For over 30 years, The Manoff Group has brought innovations in qualitative research methods, communication strategies, media planning, and the creation of training materials to health, family planning, environment, and nutrition programs around the globe.

Save the Children [http://www.savethechildren.org/jump.jsp?path=/publications/mothers/ 2006/SOWM_2006_final.pdf]
Interesting and illustrative report The State of the World’s Mothers from Save the Children, which helps children in need in 15 U.S. states and more than 35 developing nations around the world. The report examines issues of health, education, economic opportunities, food security and after-school support for mothers living in poverty around the world. Illustrative personal stories and country studies are drawn from a variety of countries.

United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) [http://www.unsystem.org/scn/]
The United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition is the focal point for harmonizing the policies and activities on nutrition of the UN system. Its role is to serve as a coordinating mechanism, for exchange of information and technical guidance, and to act dynamically to help the UN respond to nutritional problems. The site provides links to SCN news and reports on nutrition worldwide.

US Agency for International Development (USAID)'s Global Health Bureau [http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/]
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the federal government agency that implements America’s foreign assistance programs. USAID's commitment to improving global health includes confronting global health challenges through improving the quality, availability, and use of essential health services. USAID's strategy for global health seeks to stabilize world population and protect human health through programs in maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, family planning and reproductive health, infectious diseases, environmental health, nutrition and other life-saving areas.

World Bank's Health, Nutrition and Population [http://www1.worldbank.org/hnp]
This site contains information on World Bank nutrition activities and publications that assist clients improve health, nutrition, and population outcomes of poor people and protect people from the impoverishing effects of illness, malnutrition, and high fertility. The World Bank also publishes a weekly compendium of food and hunger news from around the world.

World Health Organization's (WHO) Nutrition for Health and Development Program [http://www.who.int/nut/]
The World Health Organization’s Nutrition for Health and Development Program works to strengthen and support the capabilities and effectiveness of member states for assessing and addressing nutrition problems and develops and maintains global nutrition databases to help states, organizations, and institutions working to fight malnutrition. Information about the Program’s activities and outputs, research, publications (some available on-line) and the Global Nutrition Data Banks can be accessed from the home page.

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