Wasting and Stunting: Overcoming the divide

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Wasting and Stunting: Overcoming the divide

Wasting-Stunting (WaSt) Technical Interest Group (TIG)

Donor: Irish Aid, USAID, OFDA

Collaborators: Technical Interest Group

ENN project lead: Tanya Khara

Timeframe: 2014 - ongoing

Background

Since the 1970s, nutritionists have categorised undernutrition in two major ways, children are either wasted or stunted.

There has very rarely been consideration for the relationship between these two types of undernutrition with limited evidence to describe the associations between wasting and stunting. Little has previously been known on:

Whether one precedes, or predisposes, the other.
The biochemical and physiological processes through which the relationship between wasting and stunting can be mediated and /or magnified.
The scale of the problem on concurrent wasting and stunting.
The link between concurrent wasting and stunting and its impact on child mortality.

The WaSt Technical Interest Group (TIG) was formed to examine this relationship. The group, coordinated by ENN is made up of 42 experts in child growth, nutrition, epidemiology.

ENN’s main role since the group's formation has been to harness the skills and enthusiasm of the TIG and facilitate a number of influential project workstreams. The backbone of the expert group is the maintenance of a creative, transparent forum to scrutinise and explore the relationship between wasting and stunting, allowing it to serve the nutrition and wider humanitarian and development sectors as a hub for evidence and expert opinion which is free from organisational agendas.

A governance note outlines the mechanisms for ways of working.

What we now know as a result of the WaSt Project and the WaSt TIG:

In the past 4 years, research has shown that individual children are at risk of both conditions, might be born with both, pass from one state to the other over time, and accumulate risks to their health and life through their combined effects.
Country level data suggests that up to 8% of children under 5 may be both wasted and stunted at the same time, global estimates translate to around 16 million children.
Our reanalysis of data on survival shows that mortality risk for children concurrently wasted and stunted is equal to that of the most severe form of being wasted, and that there are opportunities for identifying these children at community level.
Evidence also indicates that seasonal stresses might underlie the connections between weight faltering and linear growth faltering.

The work so far:

We have had three phases of work thus far and are currently in the fourth

Phase 1 (2013- 2015):

The WaSt TIG completed the following pieces of work

A narrative review of the relationship between wasting and stunting to the understanding of the links between the two conditions.
A research prioritisation exercise was conducted and subsequently published.
An analysis of five high burden country datasets to estimate the burden of concurrent wasting and stunting for the 2015 Global Nutrition Report.

Phase 2 (2016- 2017):

The WaSt TIG completed the following pieces of work

A re-analysis of DHS and MICS datasets from 83 countries to generate a pooled prevalence estimate of the burden of concurrent of wasting and stunting in those countries. (Open access paper published in Maternal and Child Nutrition Journal).
These findings were also used by the Global Nutrition Report 2016 (p.23).
An analysis of cross-sectional datasets (SMART surveys) to examine concurrence in more detail and look at how best to identify concurrently wasted and stunted children (findings have been published in Archives of Public Health).
A related analysis focusing on identifying those children at most risk of mortality using cohort data from Niakhar, Senegal (published in Public Health Nutrition).
An additional paper which specifically explores the patterns of concurrent wasting and stunting in children under 5yrs of age in the Niakhar Senegal cohort, highlighting the increased risk in boys (published in Maternal and Child Nutrition).

Phase 3 (2018- 2019):

The WaSt TIG developed the following pieces of work:

A policy brief ‘Child wasting and stunting: Time to overcome the separation (2018)’ (also available in French, Spanish and Arabic)- a culmination of the research and discussion of the group over the last 4 years.
A viewpoint article in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health 'Beyond Wasted and Stunted - a paradigm shift is needed to fight child undernutrition'. (read more on a blog written by the WaSt TIG Coordinators)
Data from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Gambia surveillance programme has been another key focus on the WaSt work with detailed analysis carried out on cohorts of 0-24 month age groups in relation to seasonality and growth, wasting as a risk factor for stunting and vice versa
The very first WaSt TIG podcast featuring members of the group discussing some of the analysis the group has produced over the last few years
The development of a concept for a research study aiming to bring this learning on the relationship between wasting and stunting and their combined impact on mortality into existing programme practices. The concept was taken up by OFDA and funding has been secured for implementation in Nigeria starting in 2020- See this research summary.
The links between the WaSt Project and the MAMI Special Interest Group were explored in a face to face meeting between the two working groups. A meeting report was produced.
We evaluated the work within the WaSt Project through a Stories of Change report.

Phase 4 (2020-):

In 2020, the WaSt TIG entered its fourth phase of the project, with work on key workstreams continuing. These include:

Further work on the WaSt study
An update to the systematic review
Work exploring the sex differences in relation to wasting and stunting
Further analysis on multiple cohort datasets on the identification of children at highest risk of mortality (in light of previous work on concurrent wasting and stunting and risk).

As these pieces of work progress, we will update this page accordingly.

Further work planned for the next two years is outlined in the workplan.

For more information please contact Tanya Khara.