Research Projects

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the school Mid-day meal program (MDM) are programs launched in India to break the chain of intergenerational undernutrition. These programs provide supplementary nutrition to preschool children and pregnant and lactating mothers, and play a significant role in providing nutritious and diverse food to primary school children. However, there is no evaluation of the impact of these programs on nutritional status in later life. National surveys consistently show a large burden of nutritional deficiencies, particularly among children in India. Therefore, it is important to explore the enrolment and utilization of these programs rather than just evaluating their role in improving children and young adults' nutritional status. To evaluate the impact of ICDS and MDM on the nutritional status of adolescent girls, young mothers, and their offspring, a project proposes using Bayesian hierarchical models. The model consists of multiple levels of probability distributions of relationships between data within a single group and multiple levels from different populations. The age-specific distribution of height, weight, and hemoglobin (Hb) will be estimated from the healthy subset of adolescent girls in the NFHS 4 data and compared against standard distributions of the World Health Organization (WHO). An overdispersion correction factor will be derived by comparing the variability of these parameters among healthy Indian adolescents. The project will utilize currently available national survey data to evaluate the impact of ICDS and MDM on a composite measure of nutritional status of adolescent girls, young mothers, and their offspring using Bayesian hierarchical models.