New Tools Aim to Better Prepare Decision-Makers to Understand the Potential Impacts of Shocks on Nutrition

By the Agile Core Team for Nutrition Monitoring (ACT-NM)

The Agile Core Team for Nutrition Monitoring’s (ACT-NM) Analytical Framework is a new multi- sectoral tool that can better prepare policymakers and implementers to mitigate the impact of shocks on nutrition outcomes.

In addition to derailing progress made in recent years toward achieving the maternal, infant and young child nutrition targets endorsed by the World Health Assembly (WHA), COVID-19 delivered blows to many international, national, and subnational structures that support nutrition programs. While the impact of the pandemic continues to resonate, it also provides an opportunity to focus on lessons learned and prepare for future shocks to global systems, especially those that impact nutrition.?

Shocks to Health and Food Systems

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a variety of policy and program decisions unprecedented in public health, but necessary to control the spread of the pandemic. Travel restrictions and other measures disrupted supply chains while demand increased due to panic buying, causing shortages of food and other commodities. In some countries, severe movement restrictions kept people at home for extended periods of time, disrupting access to income, education, and health and nutrition services.?

While some shocks to the health system were expected, it soon became clear that the many systems impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic had, and continue to have, implications for nutrition. For example, school closures reduced access to low-cost or free meals among school-aged children, and the limited availability of and accessibility to fresh foods in markets shifted diet patterns toward less-healthy options. The pandemic also highlighted inequalities related to internet access, especially as remote provision of health, food delivery, and nutrition services became the norm in some settings. Could we have better predicted the impacts the pandemic would have across sectors, helping us proactively address potential shocks? The Agile Core Team for Nutrition Monitoring (ACT-NM), comprising representatives from 联合国儿童基金会 , USAID , World Health Organization , and USAID Advancing Nutrition, grappled with this complex question in preparation for the next shock.?

Stepping up to the Challenge

The ACT-NM developed a comprehensive nutrition and COVID-19 Analytical Framework focused on the pathways connecting COVID-19 (and other global shocks) to nutrition outcomes in both children and adults. This framework is well poised to—?

• allow policymakers and implementers to better identify and assess potential pathways linking COVID-19 and nutrition
• provide a useful tool for planning policies, programs, and interventions
• help identify data gaps
• serve as a structure to model efforts across multiple pathways
• support an integrated, systems approach to nutrition challenges caused, increased, or intensified by COVID-19 and future pandemics/crises.

Linking the underlying determinants of food, health, social protection, education, water, and sanitation to outcomes and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on nutrition, the Analytical Framework can help decision-makers better understand the potential impact of future disasters.

For policymakers and program staff, this tool is a powerful and adaptable means to fortify nutrition programs in the wake of COVID-19 and future shocks.

The Analytical Framework illustrates how the policy and program decisions taken to mitigate crises potentially result in changes in several service delivery systems and nutrition behaviors. The interactive version of the Analytical Framework allows health care professionals, community health workers, business owners, and policy makers to delve into the potential impacts of a given shock, exploring various contexts that expand into underlying determinants. In a future iteration of the visualizer, policy makers will be able to click on the visualizer’s interactive features to expand, collapse, and build out their own pathways and explore the impacts of specific shocks, such as movement restrictions or supply chain disruption on nutrition outcomes. For instance, local governments will be able to assess how travel restrictions and border closures may disrupt vital food systems due to a decrease in air and sea freight movement, leading to increased food insecurity. School boards will also be able to use the visualizer to analyze the potential impacts of reduced student support services on nutrition.?

Data Mapping

To better assess pandemic mitigation strategy impacts, ACT-NM encourages the use of the Analytical Framework for modeling shocks. The Analytical Framework functions in a broader sense to help program designers think through potential pathways by which their decisions may impact nutrition. Its complementary data-mapping tool includes a listing of global and country-specific data sources that correspond to the specific factors in the framework. Policy makers can use the data-mapping tool as a reference for identifying existing data sets with information related to the factors of the framework. The data-mapping tool also highlights gaps in data which can inform policy makers on areas where data collection is necessary to assess potential nutrition impacts.?

Looking Ahead to the Future

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that planning for the unexpected goes a long way in addressing challenges associated with large global shocks. It’s easy to point fingers at what could have or should have been done differently back in spring 2020, but preparation for any future shocks like pandemics, natural disaster, conflicts and/or economic crises can start now. The Analytical Framework is an effective tool that can be used for modeling by policymakers and program designers to lay the foundation for effective responses to any such future shocks. Share your perspective on how you or your organization is preparing for future global shocks to nutrition systems in the comments.