Proceedings of the 10th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Implementation of Nutritional Interventions in Maharashtra: Enablers and Inhibitors
Shelley Saha Sinha
ABSTRACT:
Malnutrition is a multifaceted problem needing a multisectoral response to draw upon synergies across policies and programs. It remains one of the most serious public health challenges across India. Decades of policy and programmatic efforts have been made to tackle the continuing challenge of malnutrition. However successful implementation of these programs and effective reduction of malnutrition need inter-departmental convergence, especially among frontline workers (FLWs). Therefore, research was undertaken using a mixed method design with the objective of exploring the existing convergence of FLWs in delivering nutrition interventions like Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Days (VHSNDs) in selected tribal blocks of Maharashtra. Data was collected from FLWs and sector level officials of both Department of health and Department of women and child welfare, which delivers nutritional interventions to explore convergence mechanism at village level. Discussions were also held with service users. VHSNDs were also observed to understand the nuances of convergence at village level among both service providers and service users of nutrition interventions. The study provides evidence-based practices of convergence among health and nutrition department and assess the applicability of the strategies formulated under the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) in tribal areas from the state of Maharashtra in India. The study would also assess the scope of convergence in nutritional interventions through the systems-model. It would inform policy makers about the enablers and inhibitors of implementing nutritional interventions to address systemic gaps.
keywords: Convergence, Frontline workers, Malnutrition, Multi-sectoral, Tribal