An Integrated Parenting, Nutrition, and Malaria Prevention Package to Improve Nutrition and Child Development in Infants and Pre-school Children : Impact Evaluation of a Randomized Controlled Trial in Southern Mali : Latin America and the Caribbean - Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS Project (Anglais)

Early child development (ECD) programming is gaining momentum across Africa, and community-based ECD programs in disadvantaged rural settings are being established in a number of countries, including Mali. Attendance at rural ECD centers has been found...  Voir la suite Early child development (ECD) programming is gaining momentum across Africa, and community-based ECD programs in disadvantaged rural settings are being established in a number of countries, including Mali. Attendance at rural ECD centers has been found to significantly improve core dimensions of children’s development and school readiness, including cognitive and problem-solving abilities, fine-motor skills and socio-emotional and behavioral outcomes, and lead to significantly increased primary school enrollment at the appropriate age.However, impacts on communication and language development were found to be more limited, thought in part to be due to the fact that many children arrived at ECD centers with severe delays in physical growth and vocabulary development. This finding highlights the need to expand ECD programmes to include health, nutrition and early stimulation interventions starting much earlier in life.The programme which targets all children in the community is delivered through the pre-existing infrastructure of community based Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers, previously established in the study area by Save the Children.There have been no previous studies examining the combined impact of these two newly recommended malaria and nutrition interventions in early childhood. In addition, whilst each disease control and nutritional intervention has previously been shown to bring substantial gains in child survival and physical growth, the benefits for cognitive and linguistic development are comparatively unknown. Most intervention trials typically focus either on health or educational outcomes, rarely both. The impact of an integrated package of ECD, malaria and nutrition interventions on a child’s physical and cognitive development over the first 5-6 years of life, and learning as children transition into school has not previously been examined. This study aimed to address this key gap in knowledge, whilst providing evidence of the operational feasibility and cost effectiveness of the approach.  Réduire