The Health Sector has a Crucial Role to Play in Delivering Nutritional Interventions

There is sound evidence that investing in improving the nutritional well-being of populations is one of the most cost-effective economic investments. Yet nutrition requires the attention of multiple sectors to bring about lasting improvements.

The health sector has an important role to play. By delivering nutritional interventions, health outcomes can be improved in many of the poorest countries around the world, directly improving child survival. An analysis published in the Lancet in June 2013 suggests that: “the current total of deaths in children younger than 5 years can be reduced by 15% if populations can access ten evidence-based nutrition interventions at 90% coverage.” These interventions are largely aimed at the first 1000 days of a child’s life and will also reduce child stunting.

Alan Dangour, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), believes that it’s critical for the health sector to deliver these interventions. 

“The health sector has a critical role to play in delivering these interventions, which could be called nutritional interventions but are actually directed at child survival” said Dangour.  “The health sector has a role to play in understanding its role in improving nutrition, defining a strategy for delivering nutrition interventions and then supporting all relevant partners to ensure sustainable and high quality delivery. And critically the health sector should be advocating that these are essential interventions that all health systems should be delivering.”

The European Commission has set itself an enormously ambitious, but Dangour feels exciting, target to reduce stunting in children under five by seven million by 2025. He believes the EU has the opportunity to meet this challenge with the enormous investment and commitment it has made to nutrition, but “action now needs to follow [this commitment]. One of the critical actions is going to be delivering nutrition services through health systems which are effective, which have high coverage and high quality and then daring to dive into new sectors, daring to partner with people that you haven’t partnered with before in order to bridge those silos and start working across sectors to improve infant and young child nutrition” said Dangour 

But how can this be done in practice? 

Dangour discussed some important questions that the health sector needs to address:

1. How should these interventions be delivered?

Going into the field you often see health services with limited facilities and medicines, and limited capacity to deliver core nutrition interventions. How can we strengthen the system in order to deliver interventions to the poorest parts of society? This is a huge challenge that requires coherent planning and financing. 

2. Which interventions should be delivered? 

It’s recommended that the entire package of these ten interventions is delivered, but it’s a large package with some costing more than other, and mothers not always keen to receive all of them. You might decide in your country – having done a situational analysis – that some are more relevant than others. In practice it comes down to feasibility and cost issues, but these should be based on a situation analysis to ensure you’re not trying to do something impossible or unnecessary. 

3. Coverage

What is good coverage and should this be equal across a country or should higher risk groups receive better coverage? Whatever you decide, you should ensure that you’re supporting the health sector already in place in the country, working with the government ministries or health services to achieve coverage. 

In the following interview Alan Dangour discusses how to bridge these silos and the key role of open data in advancing our knowledge and understanding.

Further Reading

• Bhutta, Zulfiqar A et al. The Lancet , Volume 382 , Issue 9890 , 452 - 477
• The Lancet Series 2013 on Maternal and Child Nutrition

This interview summarises thematic discussions held during the 2016 edition of the annual Health Seminar, organised by the DEVCO Health Team and attended by EU experts from HQ and EU Delegations around the world.