Context :
Digital
Intervention can help address Malnutrition
/ HT / 12
May 2022 / Author : Rekha Koita
Extract :
The latest National Family Health Survey -5
presents some sobering data on the health of India’s youngest.
Eighty nine per cent of children between six to 23 months ( less
than two years of age ) do not receive a “ minimum
acceptable diet.”
Since 2019, we have worked with the Foundation for Mother
and Child Health (FMCH), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works with
the urban poor in Mumbai and its suburbs, supporting over 50,000 beneficiaries.
Field workers are trained to conduct door-to-door visits to provide the support
that pregnant women, lactating mothers and children up to two years would need
to cut malnutrition at its bud.
Our foundation’s thrust is to build the capacity of NGOs.
In this instance, we found the biggest support we could offer FMCH was to help build them a digital platform. Technology, we found, really can help control widespread
malnutrition across communities.
In each home visit, NGO teams need to share relevant
health content (for instance, good practices for nutrition of mother and child,
guidelines for breast-feeding, vaccination schedules), as well as conduct
anthropometry — measure the height and weight of the child; the most important
indicator of malnutrition — at specific intervals. So where does technology
come into the picture ?
Over rounds of discussions with the NGO we
helped create NuTree, a mobile application for the Android
platform.
The NuTree platform
allows field workers to register beneficiaries and also record visits.
We launched the first phase in 2020 across communities in Bhiwandi, Kurla and at Wadia Hospital
and for starters, included a comprehensive decision tree for each type of visit that guided the
field worker on the type of questions to be asked, and also provided visual content like pictures and videos to help explain concepts better.
For instance, a pregnant woman is asked if she has gone for her
ante-natal check-up (ANC). If she has, she is asked to furnish more details –
how many visits are over, when she went etc. If she hasn’t gone for any
check-up, she is counselled on its importance and given crucial information on
where she could go. Field officers are also prompted to ask about the frequency of meals and diet diversity. They go through
the NuTree questionnaire and enter the data in the app, saving
crucial time.
In the second phase, launched last year, the app included decision trees for children with
severe acute malnutrition ( SAM ) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) after FMCH
realised that they didn’t have a standardised
protocol for visiting and managing such cases
which was lowering the impact of their programmes. Accordingly, they defined a
protocol which ensured consistency across field workers and higher quality of care: They standardised once-a-week
visits for SAM cases and fortnightly visits for MAM cases, with detailed questions for each visit. Almost
immediately, within 3-5 weeks, they were able to record improvements in
the health of beneficiaries.
This phase also included a module
for field workers to schedule their day: each person
now had a list of visits due, by date and location,
as well as overdue visits.
Data after just four months of usage showed that the
percentage of high-risk mothers who missed visits went down from 58% to 37%,
pregnant mothers who missed anthropometry visits went down from 40% to 20% and
children who missed anthropometry visits each went down from 30% to 14%. FMCH
found that the app allowed a field officer to handle 100 more families on
average– a 50% increase in their productivity
The government’s anganwadi system takes care of the health and nutrition of pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children from
zero to five years in addition to several other aspects
of health and education.
While the system itself is vital to the long-term well-being
of the community, the current set up has gaps, like insufficient leadership and
inadequate training for anganwadi workers to counsel mothers. Furthermore,
their visits require additional data entry,
and tracking hundreds of mothers, children and visits adds to the anganwadi
worker’s burden.
Implementing the right technology, we found, not only improved the field worker’s
efficiency by taking a load off of their backs, but also ensured consistency
and accountability as the NGO leaders could monitor what’s happening on ground.
While adoption of
technology cannot solve all problems, it clearly provides tools to equip our
community workers and enables them to become more effective in resolving
widespread malnutrition.
Congratulations , Smt. Rekha Koita :
( Director . Koita Foundation )
( rekhak@koitafoundation.org
/ info@koitafoundation.org / rizwank@koitafoundation.com )
For launch of your Mobile App, NuTree
In this context, you might like to look up my following suggestion for a similar
mobile App, which I called ,
BANMALI (Ban Malnutrition in India ), sent as
email to our Cabinet Ministers :
Ø Saving
1.2 million Kids ………………………………….[ 29 June 2016 ]
Which I followed up with following e-mails :
A Mobile App named " BANMALI "…………………………………..
[ 15 Sept 2016 ]
BANMALI arrives : Named as Poshan Tracker…………………...[
17 Apr 2021 ]
Thank You, Smt Smriti Iraniji ………………………………………... [ 08 Nov 2021 ]
There
are no Starvation Deaths ? ………………………………… [19 Jan 2022 ]
With Regards,
Hemen Parekh / hcp@RecruitGuru.com / 13
May 2022
