We evaluate the impacts of a $120 million project in Indonesia conducted between 2014 and 2018 that sought to reduce stunting through a combination of (1) community-driven development grants targeted at health and education outcomes, (2) training for health providers on infant and young child feeding...
Climate change may impact human health through the influence of weather on environmental transmission of diarrhea.
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) improvements are promoted to reduce diarrhoea in low-income countries.
Meta-analyses show that small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNS) reduce child wasting and stunting. There is little information regarding effects on severe wasting or stunting.
Small-quantity (SQ) lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNSs) provide many nutrients needed for brain development.
Meta-analyses show that small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNSs) reduce child stunting and wasting. Identification of subgroups who benefit most from SQ-LNSs may facilitate program design.
This brief provides an overview of the Bill & Melinda Gates’ Foundation’s Private Sector Partnerships for Nutrition initiative and shares early learnings on the potential to improve the nutritional status of low- and middle-income consumers through fortified packaged foods and beverages.
Soil-transmitted helminths and Giardia duodenalis are responsible for a large burden of disease globally.
Poor nutrition and hand hygiene are risk factors for acute respiratory infections (ARIs). Safe drinking water and sanitation can reduce exposure to pathogens and encourage healthy immune responses, reducing the risk of ARIs.
This report presents findings from a 5-year randomized control trial of a $120 million maternal and child health project in Indonesia funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
Malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under five years of age, with most cases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. Children in this age group in Africa are at greatest risk worldwide for developmental deficits.
The authors agree with Karen Levy and Joseph Eisenberg that observational studies of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions with carefully designed counterfactuals can play a valuable role in generating evidence on effectiveness, particularly in urban settings.
Three large new trials of unprecedented scale and cost, which included novel factorial designs, have found no effect of basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions on childhood stunting, and only mixed effects on childhood diarrhea.
Child stunting is a global problem and is only modestly responsive to dietary interventions. Numerous observational studies have shown that water quality, sanitation, and handwashing (WASH) in a household are strongly associated with linear growth of children living in the same household.
Helminth and protozoan infections affect more than 1 billion children globally. Improving water quality, sanitation, handwashing, and nutrition could be more sustainable control strategies for parasite infections than mass drug administration, while providing other quality of life benefits.
Improved sanitation has been associated with a reduced prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection and has been hypothesized to prevent fecal contamination from spreading throughout the household environment.
Poor infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices are associated with linear growth faltering.
The relation between subclinical hemoglobinopathies and concentrations of the iron-regulatory hormone hepcidin is not well characterized.
This brief summarizes the findings of an evaluation of WASH for Life, a $17 million grant facility for innovative water, sanitation, and hygiene projects with the potential to scale, managed by USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures and co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This report presents the findings from interim data collection for the Nutrition Project that took place between October and December 2017.
This booklet presents profiles of projects funded by WASH for Life, a $17 million grant facility for innovative water, sanitation, and hygiene projects with the potential to scale, managed by USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures and co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In crowded urban settlements in low-income countries, many households rely on shared sanitation facilities.
Poor nutrition and infectious diseases can prevent children from reaching their developmental potential. We aimed to assess the effects of improvements in water, sanitation, handwashing, and nutrition on early child development in rural Kenya.
Poor nutrition and exposure to faecal contamination are associated with diarrhoea and growth faltering, both of which have long-term consequences for child health.
Vitamin B-12 is an essential nutrient required for many functions including DNA synthesis, erythropoiesis, and brain development. If maternal milk vitamin B-12 concentrations are low, infants may face elevated risks of deficiency when exclusively breastfed.
Rapid urbanization has contributed to an urban sanitation crisis in low-income countries.
This white paper summarizes rigorous evidence on approaches to increasing participation, improving learning, and enhancing the relevance of secondary education in developing countries.
Mathematica Policy Research explores the prevalence of stunting and possible nutrition, sanitation, and health factors associated with growth faltering among children 0-35 months old in rural areas of Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, and South Sumatra in Indonesia.
Mathematica Policy Research examines breastfeeding practices and knowledge in the first two years of life among caregivers of children 0-35 months old in rural areas of Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, and South Sumatra in Indonesia.
Mathematica Policy Research uses household survey data from Indonesia to examine the prevalence of anemia among children 6-35 months old and pregnant women and identifies risk factors for anemia in those populations.
The universal education movement has dramatically increased the number of children attending primary school in Africa and Asia.
Diarrhea is a leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age worldwide. Flies are important vectors of diarrheal pathogens in settings lacking networked sanitation services.
Consumer responses to food product recalls have been documented, but there is little information on how consumers respond to illnesses or outbreaks associated with food service facilities.
Almost one-quarter of the world’s population is infected with soil-transmitted helminths (STH). We conducted a study to determine the prevalence and location of STH—Ascaris, Trichuris, and hookworm spp.—egg contamination in soil within rural household plots in Kenya.
Most lactating Kenyan women consumed less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin B-12 and had low breast milk vitamin B-12 concentrations.
In low-income countries, rapid urbanization adds pressure to already stressed water and sanitation systems that are critical to the health of communities.
This brief summarizes key findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of the Packard Western Kenya project.
To better understand the risks of exposure for young children to fecal contamination in their environment, we systematically characterized and quantified behaviors of 154 children, 0–5 years old, in four high-density, low-income neighborhoods in Accra, Ghana.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation contracted with Mathematica to conduct a rigorous randomized evaluation of the Indonesian Community-Based Health and Nutrition to Reduce Stunting Project, also known as the Nutrition Project, to understand the project’s effects on stunting and related key maternal...
This study explores public toilet use, characteristics of public toilet customers and possible improvements to public toilet facilities in four neighbourhoods in Accra, Ghana, the country with the highest reliance on shared sanitation facilities globally.
Use of a disposable diaper for children’s faeces, a common practice in many developed countries, is likely to become more common in developing countries as well, due to economic growth.