Improving child nutrition surveillance in the Republic of Mauritius
Children's growth and development depends heavily on good nutrition. Childhood nutrition also plays a key role in the likelihood of chronic conditions (such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer) later in life.
Ensuring we get nutrition right in the early years is crucial for a successful society. There is increased interest in child nutrition globally, which has resulted in high level commitments to address child malnutrition. However, in some countries, monitoring nutrition is hindered by non-existent or weak paper-based surveillance systems.
Poor data and long delays
The Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean is a country with little or no quality data on the prevalence of malnutrition in children under five.
The country has a paper-based child nutrition surveillance system which collects weight data amongst children up to the age of five from growth monitoring clinics.
This system faces challenges of very poor data quality and long delays between data collection, analysis and presentation.
The surveillance system’s limitations pose a threat to the country’s ability to plan for and respond to current and future nutrition problems.
A standardised approach to measuring length/height in children is important to enhance data quality
Creating a child nutrition surveillance system
Improving surveillance of childhood nutrition in the Republic of Mauritius was the focus of a project by researchers at the University of Warwick. Led by Dr Rishi Caleyachetty, the project involved developing a mobile-based child nutrition surveillance system.
His team - consisting of a nutritionist (Raveena Murachpersad), software developer (Shravan Murachpersad) and nurse (Ana Irache) - co-developed a mobile data collection app and dashboard with the Ministry of Health to enable near real-time monitoring of child malnutrition.
“Using wireless mobile devices for field data collection could improve child nutrition surveillance, which is a critical need in the Republic of Mauritius” explains Dr Caleyachetty.
Despite the many challenges before scaling up the use of mobile devices for child nutrition surveillance across the country, Dr Caleyachetty remains committed.
“I have no doubt that exploring mobile technologies will revolutionise how quickly and accurately data is collected, reported and acted upon" he explains.
"While there are many barriers in the way, part of our work will be to understand these, as well as understand how we can remove them.”
The project directly addresses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals of Zero Hunger and Good Health and Well-Being.
Efforts to digitalise child nutrition surveillance must occur alongside efforts to enhance data quality. This includes using medically approved scales
