How can health and nutrition education needs in rural China be addressed? Start by examining infant-feeding practices.
Scott Rozelle, PhD, director of the Rural Education Action Program, part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford, conducted a study on 1,800 babies in China's Shaanxi province to address high rates of anemia and cognitive delays in children owing to poor nutrition, though not necessarily lack of funds for healthy food.
A recent piece on the FSI website describes the ongoing study:
One third of households were given a free daily supply of nutritional supplements for their children. Another third were given the same free supplements, and were enrolled in a text message reminder program. A final third of households served as a control group. The study is ongoing through April, 2015, but 12 months into the program, the researchers have found that the supplements have reduced anemia rates by 28 percent, although cognitive delays have persisted.
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Text message reminders appear to have been modestly effective in improving program compliance. Caregivers who received the reminders gave their baby the micronutrient supplements, on average, 10 percent more often over the course of the first six months of the study. So far, however, this improved compliance has not led to a corresponding fall in anemia rates.
Rozelle commented in the piece, “To reach all of China’s at-risk babies – that’s our ultimate objective. And to do that, we need an effective government program.”
Previously: Who’s hungry? You can’t tell by looking, Feeding practices and activity patterns for babies vary with families’ race and ethnicity, study shows and Student inventors create device to help reduce anemia in the developing world
Photo by Kris Krüg
