Malnutrition in food-surplus areas: experience from nutritional surveillance for decentralized planning in Haiti.
In Haiti, a novel approach to nutritional surveillance was developed on the basis of a low-cost, simple-to-repeat set of household surveys in all nine administrative departments using sentinel community sites. This system allows each department to independently conduct follow-up surveys as needed. The results of the first round of surveys conducted in 1995 show lower malnutrition rates in typical food-deficient departments and high levels of malnutrition in several food-surplus areas. Further analyses underscore the importance of variables related to child-care practices and of care-enabling factors such as household food security, health environment, and caregivers' time and education. These findings challenge the traditional thinking among a majority of Haitian policy makers who look at the malnutrition problem solely from the perspective of local food production.
D000367:Age Factors; D001827:Body Height; D001835:Body Weight; D002648:Child; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005523:Food Supply; D006205:Haiti / Q000453:epidemiology; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009748:Nutrition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D018673:Nutrition Policy; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors