Nutrition Information Systems for Implementing Child Nutrition Programs

Nutrition information systems (NIS) provide the information needed for planning and implementing nutrition investment programs. This paper develops a framework to analyze NIS in the study countries. Existing NIS elements in the study countries are reviewed, making recommendations for improvements. Key findings include the need for national household probability surveys that are synchronized among countries and repetitive over time, including information related to both general and micronutrient malnutrition; simplified, routine program information systems that include information use from the household level up, and that take advantage of emerging information technologies; operations research and training for effective growth monitoring and promotion programs; and evaluation research, especially within the first five years, to guide the development of cost-effective country programs. Advocacy and substantial investments in capacity building will be required to ensure that staff from the community level up are able to function effectively in an information culture. The Role of Information in Improving Nutrition utrition information systems are an essential component of national investment programs aimed at reducing the incidence and prevalence of malnutrition in Asia. Yet the status of nutrition information in Asia remains problematic at the regional, national, subnational, and community levels. In this Project, information will be needed to support the overall strategy and programs, as presented in the country reports and summarized by Mason, Hunt et al. (2001). It is therefore crucial to clearly identify the information required to support effective design and management of country programs, and to build the capability needed for generating and using this information. The basic approach of the country programs is to implement large-scale community-based nutrition programs, while at Nancy Mock and John Mason are professors in the Department of International Health and Development, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and the Tulane Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer, Tulane University. N Nutrition Information Systems 215 the same time expanding micronutrient deficiency control programs (Mason et al. 1999). The policy environment will be addressed when possible, and policy constraints identified, so that program designs take these constraints into account. Information is the critical link in the assessment–analysis–action (Triple A) cycle that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) advocates as the basis for programs (Jonsson et al. 1998). Information should support decisions at all organizational levels of country programs, from the household/individual to the national level. The UNICEF Information Strategy has laid out a typology of systems and analyses for generating action, stressing that progress requires reliable information, actual decisions, and their implementation on this basis (Jonsson et al. 1998). The analysis presented below uses the UNICEF Information Strategy to develop a framework for studying NIS across regions. In the present context of the seven study countries and their strategies, we consider the information, data, and decision needs for program design, program management, policy making, and crisis management.