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Technical Consultation Reports: Nutrition in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), November 2003 and Young Child Feeding and the DHS, April 2004
Initiated by USAID in 1984, the DHS assists developing countries to collect, analyze, and use data to improve national programs to address family planning, maternal and child health, child survival, HIV/AIDS and other STIs, and reproductive health. FANTA and its partners and colleagues in other cooperating agencies, academic institutions, and bi- and multilateral institutions draw on the DHS reports to inform their policy guidance and applied programming work in the areas of nutrition, health, and food security. As USAID prepares to begin a new five-year DHS program, it is an opportune time to discuss and recommend modifications to the current indicators, survey questions, and presentation of data related to nutrition.
FANTA, in collaboration with ORC Macro/DHS, recently hosted 2 meetings to review the nutrition sections of the current questionnaire as well as the presentation of nutrition data in the DHS documents. The four discussion areas at the November 2003 Technical Consultation: Nutrition in the DHS included Anthropometry and women's nutrition, Infant feeding (breastfeeding), Young Child Feeding (complementary feeding), and Micronutrients. In April 2004, the FANTA project, in collaboration with ORC Macro DHS, hosted a second meeting to review the current sections of the DHS, specific to young child feeding (6-23 months of age). It was a follow-up to the November 2003 Technical Consultation. The results from both technical consultations have been combined into one final report.
At the November 2003 Technical Consultation, Dr. Altrena Mukuria, Nutrition Specialist at the DHS program at ORC Macro, presented an overview of the nutrition sections of the DHS including question and indicator development, data analysis, presentation, and dissemination strategies. She discussed issues that ORC Macro has identified as requiring revisions and some of the constraints to this process.
Download 2003 Presentation
[220 kb]
At the April 2004 consultation, Young Child Feeding and the DHS, Dr. Altrena Mukuria, Nutrition Specialist at ORC Macro, presented an overview of the history of the DHS survey and new surveys that are being developed. Dr. Mukuria also covered recommendations from the November 2003 Technical Consultation and outlined a number of outstanding issues that have been targeted for modification and discussion related to young child feeding.
Ms. Mary Arimond, Scientist from the International Food Policy Research Institute, shared results from a recent analyses of DHS data in her presentation, Improving the Measurement and Presentation of Young Child Feeding Practices in the DHS. Using the framework of the Guiding Principles for Complementary Feeding of the Breastfed Child, Ms. Arimond presented a summary of suggestions for revising the selected questions in the DHS and ways to present key young child feeding indicator data.
