Nutrition surveillance in the Sudan: a community-based approach

Abstract

In 1992, a pilot project for collecting information on the socioeconomic and nutritional status of children and their mothers as part of the early warning system was implemented in two villages in Kassala Province, Sudan. The objectives were to test the feasibility of local participation in socioeconomic and nutritional data collection, analysis and utilization; and to incorporate socioeconomic data into the food and nutrition information system, and examine its usefulness in early warning. The pilot project also included the introduction of new parameters such as adult anthropometry, i.e. body mass index of the mothers of the children seen, to monitor the nutritional status of both children and their mothers at the same time. This led to very interesting results which played a major role in determining the type of intervention needed