The promise of a community-based approach to managing severe malnutrition: A case study from Ethiopia.
BACKGROUND
Community-based therapeutic care (CTC) is a new strategy in the arsenal of techniques to manage complex nutritional emergencies in rural communities. The CTC approach uses a newly developed ready-to-use therapeutic food, Plumpynut, to rehabilitate severely malnourished children in their home communities. Emerging literature has suggested the CTC strategy yielded results that were superior to those of programs limited to therapeutic feeding centers, as measured by rates of coverage and numbers of children rehabilitated.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the effectiveness of the CTC strategy in combination with conventional treatments for acute malnutrition. The expectation was that this program would support the growing consensus on the effectiveness of CTC strategies.


METHODS
Data from monitoring the initial phase of program implementation were reviewed to ascertain program impact. The number of children participating and the outcome of their participation were assessed.


RESULTS
Families became key participants in the rehabilitation of their children, and communities became strengthened through the mobilization of local networks and the improved knowledge base of local health workers. Recovery rates were comparable with international standards, and coverage far exceeded that of traditional center-based care.


CONCLUSIONS
CTC is an important tool to effectively address nutritional emergencies and may be a valuable entry point for long-term development, since it fosters capacity building and improvement in local communities. CTC programs may eventually be viewed as the entry point for more sustained development-oriented interventions, thus helping make the transition from relief to development.
Chaiken
Miriam S
MS
Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania 15705 USA. chaiken@iup.edu
Deconinck
Hedwig
H
Degefie
Tedbabe
T
D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015362:Child Nutrition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019058:Community Networks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002149:Energy Intake / Q000502:physiology*; D005002:Ethiopia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005526:Food, Formulated / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012424:Rural Population