COVID-19 impact on nutrition analytical framework

COVID-19 impact on nutrition analytical framework

WHO / Blink Media - Nana Kofi Acquah
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Background

The COVID-19 pandemic shocked the world, affecting organizations and institutions that supported the delivery of nutrition programs at all levels. The Agile Core Team for Nutrition Monitoring (ACT-NM) group, a collaboration amongst UNICEF, USAID, WHO and USAID Advancing Nutrition, was set up in June 2020 to provide a consolidated voice on nutrition monitoring in the ongoing context of COVID-19, but also to timely respond to the needs of the nutrition community.

Analytical framework

The comprehensive analytical framework developed by the ACT-NM encompasses the 6 maternal, infant and young children nutrition targets endorsed by WHA, the outcomes monitored towards the elimination of malnutrition in all its forms, one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets. 

Linking the overarching categories of food, health, social protection, education, water and sanitation to outcomes and impacts of COVID-19 on nutrition, the analytical framework is a useful tool that allows users to construct context-specific pathways to study the 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 groups various factors into different categories and sub-categories relevant to the intersection between COVID-19 and nutrition. It has a simplified organizational structure with 5 overarching categories, including a series of determinants (enabling, underlying and immediate) leading to outcomes and impact. In each category of determinants there are sub-categories of relevant factors: contextual (enabling determinants), systemic (underlying determinants) and behavioural and nutritional status (immediate determinants). The design of the framework also acknowledges the overall environmental context and the wide-ranging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the different categories and sub-categories. In addition, the framework recognizes the importance of deepening inequality and its influence on all components of the analytical framework.


The Analytical Framework Visualizer

The Analytical framework 2021 screenshot
Access Analytical framework visualizer

Health care professionals, community health workers, business owners and policymakers can delve into the impacts of a given shock, exploring various contexts that expand into underlying determinants. Policymakers can also 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 a lockdown or supply chain disruption. The tool allows users to download a pool of potential data sources for the several factors included in the framework, called the data mapping tool. 

Data mapping on COVID19 and nutrition screenshot
Download the data mapping tool

This tool incorporates a data bank of global, regional and country-specific data sources that address the specific factors included in the analytical framework. Stakeholders and policymakers can use the tool as a reference for identifying existing datasets and data gaps at country level for quantitative modelling and analysis, and thus support decision-making and political strategies.

Publication

Multi-sectoral impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on nutrition outcomes: an analytical framework
Featured publication | 5 July 2022

Multi-sectoral impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on...

This document describes the process and methodology used to develop the Analytical Framework, explains the different components and provides guidance on how it can be adapted for its application to different contexts for specific nutrition outcomes.
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