Interventions to tackle malnutrition and its risk factors in children living in slums: a scoping review

Abstract

(200 words)Context: Children living in slums are at high risk of being malnourished. There are no published reviews on existing interventions promoting better nutrition for children living in slums and the risks factors for children's malnutrition.Improved understanding of the risks factors for malnutrition in slums communities and the impact of interventions on children's health can provide guidance to practitioners and decision-makers. The present review is designed to provide this information. Methods:The search included 30 electronic bibliographic databases, and relevant eligible studies published up to December 2013. Results:The search located 1,512 citations. Full text relevance screening was conducted on 226 studies and on abstracts for 16 studies. The final 58 unique studies included 22 on interventions and 38 on risk. All of the interventions were nutrition-specific with nutritional intervention being the most dominant type. Seventy three percent of the interventions were assessed effective. Conclusion:The findings stressed the gaps in knowledge in terms of quality assessment and programmatic recommendations to identify children who are the most at risk of malnutrition to appropriately target interventions. Finally, the review helped to inform a systematic review (Cochrane Systematic review protocol 2015) that will examine the impact of interventions on outcome measures.3 | P a g e

Cities, slums, and child nutrition in Bangladesh

“…(), inference results from our regressions with administrative‐division fixed effects for slum and nonslum samples match those from their final stunting regression specifications. Our findings are also largely consistent with those from studies of the determinants of child undernutrition in selected slum settlements in various urban centers in Bangladesh (Alam et al., ; Fakir & Khan, ; Zaman, Seoty, Alam, Haque, & Yasmin, ), as well as with international evidence on the determinants of child undernutrition in slum areas (Abuya, Ciera, & Kimani‐Murage, ; Goudet, Griffiths, Bogin, & Madise, ).…”

How does poverty affect children’s nutritional status in Nairobi slums? A qualitative study of the root causes of undernutrition

“…In a 2016 scoping review ( 53 ) , 29 % of interventions implemented in urban settings were unsuccessful in promoting desired nutritional outcomes in children in urban settings. The recommendations resulting from these were mostly that an intervention alone is not sufficient to tackle undernutrition.…”

As tall as my peers – similarity in body height between migrants and hosts

“…This is a sharp contrast to Boas' words, but Spier did not mention sources supporting his statements, nor did he report on his own findings to support his statements on migrant growth. The potential 'eminent role' of nutrition on growth has since been re-echoed many times and is the basis of contemporary nutrient intervention trials to prevent growth stunting (Goudet et al 2016;Aguayo & Menon 2016;Hermanussen & Wit 2017).…”

“…A few studies report that neither Long-chain PUFA supplementation (van der Merwe et al 2013), nor glutamine-supplementation (Williams et al 2007), nor early life exposure to antibiotics (Rogawski et al 2015) had positive effects on growth. A systematic scoping review of interventions promoting better nutrition for infants and children, from birth to age 5.99 years old, living in slums in low income nations identified 22 unique studies of which 16 (73%) were assessed effective (Goudet et al 2016). Ten of these effective studies increased body mass, especially fat, but had either no impact on stunting (length-for-age < -2SD), or were associated with greater stunting.…”