Reducing Child Mortality through Vitamin A in Nepal
CASE STUDY 4: REDUCING CHILD MORTALITY THROUGH VITAMIN A IN NEPAL
1. What are the pros and cons of supplementation, dietary intake, and fortification?
Some of the pros of a good diet, supplementation and fortification can lead to a healthier life. However you cannot just depend on one of these alone to fulfill you supplementary needs. A good combination of these 3 can lead to a healthier and longer life. The cons can be not understanding how to intake recommended amounts of nutrients and poisoning your body. Also depending solely on one can lead to malnutrition, because you may deprive your body of other needed supplements.
2. What are incentives? How were they used in this case to motivate certain behaviors?
Incentives are defined as a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something. At first the incentives were 100 rupees (about 2 U.S. Dollars) given to FCHVs monthly. After one year, the Nepalese government realized that it was impossible to continue to offer a monthly stipend of 100 rupees; when the incentive ceased, so did the work of the volunteers. It was realized that the incentives would need to be a renewable resource and relied on a few basic principles. Knowing that the FCHVs could be motivated without using money they were given opportunity, respect, recognition, and ownership. This motivated the volunteers and aided in the help and changes needed to make the program successful.
3. Why do you think technical experts questioned the original observations about the impact of vitamin A on child mortality?
They did not believe that an answer so simple could solve such a large problem. It was thought it was “too good to be true”. Also they found fault with the fact that the Indonesian study had not used a placebo group in their studies and claimed that chance could have explained the test result.
1. What are the pros and cons of supplementation, dietary intake, and fortification?
Some of the pros of a good diet, supplementation and fortification can lead to a healthier life. However you cannot just depend on one of these alone to fulfill you supplementary needs. A good combination of these 3 can lead to a healthier and longer life. The cons can be not understanding how to intake recommended amounts of nutrients and poisoning your body. Also depending solely on one can lead to malnutrition, because you may deprive your body of other needed supplements.
2. What are incentives? How were they used in this case to motivate certain behaviors?
Incentives are defined as a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something. At first the incentives were 100 rupees (about 2 U.S. Dollars) given to FCHVs monthly. After one year, the Nepalese government realized that it was impossible to continue to offer a monthly stipend of 100 rupees; when the incentive ceased, so did the work of the volunteers. It was realized that the incentives would need to be a renewable resource and relied on a few basic principles. Knowing that the FCHVs could be motivated without using money they were given opportunity, respect, recognition, and ownership. This motivated the volunteers and aided in the help and changes needed to make the program successful.
3. Why do you think technical experts questioned the original observations about the impact of vitamin A on child mortality?
They did not believe that an answer so simple could solve such a large problem. It was thought it was “too good to be true”. Also they found fault with the fact that the Indonesian study had not used a placebo group in their studies and claimed that chance could have explained the test result.