2019 was an exciting year for DataDENT with milestones addressing challenges across the nutrition data value chain. Here we revisit our work highlighted through our top blog posts from this past year and look ahead at what is to come in 2020.
New Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) nutrition data
The DHS Program accepted recommendations for changes to the core DHS questionnaires between January and March 2019. Building on the outputs of two technical consultations on nutrition measurement in September 2018, DataDENT coordinated and provided technical support to develop 11 recommendations for the DHS-8 questionnaires on behalf of the global nutrition community. The new core DHS questionnaires released in October reflect a major expansion of the DHS’ nutrition content. All nutrition-related DHS changes are summarized here.
Comparison of indicators definitions
One of the major barriers to using nutrition data continues to be the lack of standardization among indicators, an issue that was highlighted in our landscaping of nutrition data visualization tools (DVTs). We reviewed seven global DVTs and documented the challenges and implications of using different indicator definitions. The findings of our review support the growing call for a global compendium on how to select, define, and calculate indicators, which we will be working on in 2020.
Planning for and estimating the costs of nutrition data and information systems (NDIS)
In anticipation of the 2020 Nutrition for Growth Summit, we reviewed national nutrition plans for 58 SUN countries to determine how countries plan for and finance NDIS. Our review found that many national nutrition plans are not costed and more support is needed in order for countries to appropriately finance data and monitoring & evaluation needs. In the coming year, our findings will inform recommendations for country and global level actions to support NDIS.
Looking ahead to 2020
As the new year approaches, DataDENT is looking forward to sharing activities that build on our existing work:
- Facilitating the full launch of Data for Nutrition (DfN) – a global community of practice for nutrition data. Join the soft launch today!
- Sharing findings of a nutrition DVT landscaping in India
- Leading sessions at Together for Nutrition: West African Data Forum and Micronutrient Forum
Happy holidays from the DataDENT team!