Maternal and infant / child micronutrient supplementation

Includes balanced energy protein, multiple micronutrient, iron, folic acid, calcium, iodine, vitamin A, zinc supplementation. While iron supplementation was included within PAN, other interventions were not prioritized in Peru.

Literature Review

A variety of forms of supplementation (balanced energy protein, multiple micronutrient, iron, folic acid, calcium, iodine, vitamin A, zinc) are included as proven interventions for improving child nutrition within the Lancet nutrition series. However, it is still unclear whether which, if any, of these various forms of micronutrient supplementation can increase height for age at scale. As in most countries, the majority of these were not prioritized by Peruvian policymakers and have not been scaled up to the national level.

Quantitative Analysis

Vitamin A supplementation was not significantly associated with stunting prevalence decline during any time period according to the linear mixed effects regression. Proxy variables were not available to measure other forms of supplementation.

According to the decomposition analysis, vitamin A supplementation contributed little to overall change in HAZ - there was actually a slight negative correlation with HAZ, which was likely the result of noise in data.

Qualitative Analysis

Not mentioned specifically.

Conclusion

While the global literature suggests that maternal and infant/child supplementation of various forms can contribute to stunting reduction, these were not prioritized in Peru.

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