Too many people suffering from malnutrition are not receiving the preventative diagnostic services and treatment they need. Results for Development is working to elevate nutrition as a priority within the health sector and ensure nutrition services are funded and delivered within a package of primary health care (PHC) services. A key element for successfully addressing malnutrition is early detection and treatment — and primary care can play a pivotal role.
Nutrition in Health Systems
The Challenge
Delivering nutrition interventions through a health system is cost-effective and leads to greater impact. However, only modest gains have been made in incorporating these services into primary health care over the last 20 years. Nutrition services are too often delivered as siloed programs, which leads to fragmentation and hinders access. Further, funding for nutrition services often comes in the form of humanitarian assistance, which can be unpredictable, short-term, and may create parallel systems. And humanitarian assistance often fails to reach communities with persistent health and nutrition needs.
Elevating nutrition as a priority within primary health care is an opportunity to improve both health and nutrition outcomes on a massive scale while also improving efficiency.
Our Approach
R4D works with change agents at global and country levels to better integrate nutrition into existing primary health care services. We work collaboratively with international donors, country policymakers and technical experts to support country leaders to make evidence informed decisions, develop sustainable financing strategies for nutrition and integrate nutrition into policy and planning across sectors.
Examples of our Work
- R4D and UNICEF worked with country leaders to co-produce a novel 6-step guide for integrating early detection and treatment of child wasting into routine primary health care. In Ethiopia, R4D partnered with the Ministry of Health to adapt and apply this global evidence, creating a 3-year operational plan. While severe acute malnutrition treatment was already being integrated in most health facilities through Ethiopia’s Health Extension Program, the new plan expands services for moderate acute malnutrition, increases efficiency by utilizing the existing workforce and reducing reliance on parallel systems, and increases sustainability by strengthening health sector ownership and leadership.
- R4D and the WHO developed a diagnostic approach to improve strategic purchasing – a way to get more value for money spent on health – for nutrition within primary health care. The approach offers a practical framework to help governments and other stakeholders describe, assess and improve strategic health purchasing for primary care. The intent is to better understand how nutrition services can be incentivized within purchasing arrangements for primary care to improve quality, coverage and efficacy using a tested, established purchasing framework.