Background: Appropriate nutrition during infancy and early childhood is a cornerstone of care for ensuring optimal child growth and development during the first 2 years of life. Globally, about 40% of under two years of age deaths are attributed to inappropriate infant and young child feeding practices. In Ethiopia, a large range of inappropriate feeding practices of mothers during infancy and early childhood were documented. This study aims to assess infant and young child feeding practice status and its determinants among mothers of children aged 6-23 months in Kalu district, Northeast Ethiopia. Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study design was applied from May 1-30/2019. A total of 605 mothers-children pair's 6-23 months were included in the study using multi-stage sampling followed by a simple random sampling technique. Data were collected using a pretested semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Bi-variate and multivariable logistic regression were used to assess determinants associated with child feeding practices. Statistical significance was decided at p-value less than 0.05. Results: Of six hundred five (605) sampled mothers having an infant and young child age 6-23 months, 589 were successfully included in the study making a response rate of 97.35%. In our study, the overall proportion of appropriate infant and young child feeding practices was 57.7%. Place of delivery (AOR=1.977; 95% Cl (1.101, 3.552)), mothers' age being 25-35 years (AOR =2.091; 95% Cl: (1.452, 3.011)) and family size >4 members (AOR=1.873; 95% CI: (1.311, 2.675)) were determinants positively associated with appropriate infant and young child feeding practices in Kalu district at 95% CI. Conclusion:The overall appropriate infant and young child feeding practices were better in general in Kalu district. However, this prevalence is not acceptable to ensure good health and better nutritional status of children. As a result, intervention initiatives should focus on institution delivery services that are crucial to implementing appropriate infant and young child feeding practice. Health facilities need to be strengthened and fully utilized to provide high-quality feeding counseling. Special attention needs to be given to younger mothers, in addition to increasing institution delivery service.

Background Urinary iodine is recommended by the world health organization as the main indicator to assess iodine status in a population. Despite this recommendation little is known about urinary iodine concentration in the study area. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the level of urinary iodine concentration among school-aged children. Methods An institution-based cross-sectional study design was used to assess the level of urinary iodine from April to June 2019 and a systematic random sampling technique was applied to select study participants. Socio-demographic characteristics were assessed using a pretested structured questionnaire and the laboratory method by Sandell–Kolthoff reaction method was used. Data were cleaned, coded, and entered into Epi data version 3.1 and then exported to SPSS version 21 software for analysis. Result A total of 634 study participants were enrolled in the study with a median age of 12 years (±SD = 2.0). The majority of the children were females (55.4%) and more than half of respondents report the use of iodized salt always. Median urinary iodine concentration was 158.5 μg/L (±SD = 104.1) with minimum and maximum values of 5.1 μg/L and 528.8 μg/L, respectively. The overall iodine deficiency in this study was 18.6% and severe deficiency constituted 7.4%. Conclusions The iodine deficiency of the school children aged 6 to 14 in the present study was 18.6% indicating high prevalence. A high proportion of iodine deficiency was observed among females and it increases as age increases. This indicates the need for an additional strategy to control iodine deficiency.

Background In-service training programs should be evaluated and modified regularly to provide quality health services. However, in Ethiopia, there is no published evidence about its effectiveness. Therefore, we evaluated the effectiveness of in-service training program of Amhara Public Health Institute Dessie Branch (APHI) using the Kirkpatrick model. Methods In October 2019, a concurrent nested mixed quantitative/qualitative, facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 107 stakeholders from 22 randomly selected east Amhara government health facilities. The qualitative part also involved all this key stakeholder interviews. Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire through face to face interview. Epi data manager and Microsoft Excel 2016 software’s were used for data entry and analysis respectively. The major qualitative findings were narrated and summarized based on thematic areas to supplement the quantitative findings. Results A total of 107 laboratory professionals working in 22 health facilities were interviewed with a response rate of 97.3%. At reaction level, 82.1% of participants strongly agreed/agreed with the course structure, training contents and learning tools. Likewise, 85.4% of them strongly agreed/agreed on trainer's knowledge and their communication skills. Besides, 93.1% of them stated an improvement in knowledge and skills after attending training. Yet, only 65.6% of participants transferred their knowledge and skills in to practice. Regarding the training set ups and environment, 45.1% of the respondents strongly disagreed/disagreed with the training hall, toilet, café, financial process, accommodation perdiem and, tea & snacks. Conclusion and recommendations: Generally speaking, the laboratory in-service training program of APHI was more or less effective. Our finding suggests regular monitoring and evaluation of training events based on a standard set of performance indicators. Furthermore, the institute is mandated to create a conducive learning environment and well established training set ups for trainees.