Nutritional surveillance: Systematizing the outcome variables an approach for the English-speaking Caribbean

Sinha, Dinesh P.

Nutritional surveillance: Systematizing the outcome variables an approach for the English-speaking Caribbean

1985

Sinha, Dinesh P.

Nutrition surveillance means "to watch over nutrition in order to make decisions which will lead to improvements in nutrition in the population". Three kinds of variables are relevant for establishing nutritional surveillance: resource variables, outcome variables, and flow variables. Outcome variables are those on which policy and program developments are based. They include direct indicators of nutrition and health outcome (birth weight, anthropometric measurements, morbidity, mortality) and indirect indicators (socio-economic status, environmental data). Most of the data on outcome variables come from health systems. English-speaking Caribbean countries have a well-developed network of health services, hospitals, and health centers compared to most developing countries. However, malnutrition among children in the Caribbean, remains a public health problem. Problems exist in data collection, in the utilization of data for decision making, and in obtaining the community involvement necessary to solve food and nutrition problems. The following steps are suggested to help alleviate the present situation of malnutrition in preschool children in the English-speaking Caribbean and the difficulties in obtaining data on outcome variables to make decisions aimed at improving nutritional conditions: 1) develop suitable gro wth charts for clinical records and mothers to be used in all Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute (CFNI) member countries, 2) establish a system of disaggregated data collection, using such data for program development and evaluation, and 3) apply the new growth charts and the data utilization system for outcome variables in all the English-speaking Caribbean. (aj)

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