Community growth monitoring.

BACKGROUND For a decade the effectiveness of growth charts has been questioned. Along with the purpose of assessing the growth patterns of children, growth charts were considered to be an educational tool. With low levels of literacy in developing countries, and consequently a minimum understanding of growth charts by mothers, they have had limited effectiveness, The practice is also time-consuming and resource intensive. OBJECTIVE In wake of the importance of monitoring the growth of children, yet keeping in mind the ineffectiveness of growth charts, a novel method of monitoring the growth of children has been demonstrated in this article. SETTING Urban squatter settlement covering a population of 10,000 people of low-income families. METHODS Secondary school educated females were trained to give primary health care to their neighboring families and they were paid by a 'Health Insurance' system devised locally. As part of the PHC program a novel method of growth monitoring was tried in the form of "Community Growth Monitoring". CONCLUSION Community Growth Monitoring requires less time and is effective in measuring the growth of children of a community as a whole, rather than the individual child. This is demonstrated as a process indicator of nutrition counseling, used as an intervention in the community.