Action Against Malnutrition Through Agriculture (AAMA) Plus MNP Study
Condition: Anemia
MeSH terms: Anemia
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Helen Keller International (HKI), the ministry of health and population, and ministry of
      agriculture and cooperatives, of Nepal and local non-governmental organizations (NGO)
      partners are currently implementing a USAID funded Action Against Malnutrition Through
      Agriculture (AAMA) project in Baitadi district located in far Western development region of
      Nepal. HKI is undertaking this study within the AAMA project to test whether providing
      micro-nutrient powders (MNPs) in a programmatic context along with homestead food production
      (HFP) and an intensive community level Infant and Young Child Feeding Behavior change
      communication (IYCF-BCC) intervention will have a greater impact on reducing anemia and
      improving growth in young children than only providing the HFP and IYCF-BCC intervention
      without MNPs or a control with no intervention.
    

Detailed description: 
      The AAMA project uses the homestead food production (HFP) model that focuses on increasing
      households year round access to nutritious food as a platform to deliver a proven essential
      nutrition actions (ENA) related messages to household with children less than 2 years old.
      The AAMA project seeks to examine the effects of household level HFP on malnutrition. So the
      recipient and other partners wishes to undertake a study to explore a plausible delivery
      mechanism for MNPs along with HFP and intensive community level IYCF-BCC and their impact on
      infant/child growth and anemia.

      The study is a cluster randomized controlled trial with a three arm factorial design. The
      trial involve 330 randomly selected children aged 6-9 months at the time of enrollment (n=110
      per each of the three study arms). MNPs distributed through FCHVs to 110 children selected
      from communities that already have the HFP and IYCF-BCC intervention. This group of children
      will be compared on outcome parameters for anemia, growth (stunting, underweight and wasting)
      and infections (diarrhea, fever and cough) to a similar sub-set of children (n=110) who
      receive only the HFP and IYCF-BCC intervention and to a third sub-set of control children of
      similar age (n=110) who are not receiving either of these interventions. Children aged 6-9
      months were chosen for the study because this age range captures the recommended age for
      introduction of complementary foods to children and our chosen age group also falls within
      the 0-24 month age range which is considered the period of rapid growth and development and
      therefore period of highest nutrient requirements in children.
    

Intervention name(s): MNP (micro-nutrient powders); AAMA project activities (HFP and IYCF BCC)
Intervention type(s): Dietary Supplement; Other
Intervention description(s): MNP is added to explore the additional value of MNP in existing AAMA program; This is the existing AAMA program
Other intervention name(s): MNP sub study in AAMA
Intervention MeSH terms: Micronutrients; Trace Elements
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Factorial Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Other
Keywords: MNP; AAMA program; Nepal; HFP; IYCF; BCC