June 19, 2019

Malnutrition in its many forms is a major contributor to the global burden of disease and disability and has gained prominence on global and national policy agendas. This is illustrated by several resolutions, goals and targets from the World Health Assembly, the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement being implemented in over 60 countries, the existence of nutrition targets within the Sustainable Development Goals and increased investments by donors and foundations.

Despite this momentum, only about one-third of countries are on track for achieving the global stunting target, roughly one-half are on track for the wasting and exclusive breastfeeding targets and virtually none are on track for anemia in reproductive-aged women and for overweight and obesity in adults. Implementation challenges, of many types, represent the major reason for this gap between goals and achievements. The Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition (SISN) was formed in 2016 to advance the theory and practice of implementation science and help narrow these gaps.

This webinar presents the frameworks and principles of implementation science as developed by SISN and illustrates their application by teams of government actors, researchers and implementers in two countries. The case studies focus on efforts to improve the delivery and utilization of iron and folic acid supplementation for pregnant women through working with the government system and USAID-funded programs in Kenya and Uganda, as part of the Implementation Science Initiative led by SISN and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Speakers

Isabelle Michaud-Letourneau PhD, MPH, RD is a nutritionist from Quebec, Canada, who has worked in clinical, community, public and international nutrition for the last 15 years. Currently, she is senior technical consultant with the Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition for various initiatives that seek to apply principles of implementation science through engaging directly with country stakeholders. She is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal. Isabelle is passionate about international development and has undertaken diverse projects as a practitioner and as a researcher in about 20 countries. In latest years, she has worked on evaluating advocacy efforts of Alive & thrive – UNICEF to achieve progress on infant and young child feeding policies in nine countries in Southeast Asiaand Africa. She is currently the technical lead for the Implementation Science Initiative in Kenya and Uganda.

David Pelletier, PhD is a Professor of Nutrition Policy in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. His research, teaching and public engagement focuses on improved methods for the analysis, design and implementation of nutrition policy and programs, tools for the scaling up nutrition interventions and the application of implementation science to nutrition. Some of his past and current projects include the development of the Program Assessment Guide to identify and address implementation bottlenecks, the Implementation Science Initiative in Kenya and Uganda to strengthen the implementation of iron-folic acid supplements for pregnant women and the African Nutrition Security Partnership to support and study the implementation of national multisectoral nutrition efforts in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali and Uganda. He served as the president of the Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition (SISN) in its first three years.

Moderator

Peggy Bentley, PhD is a nutritional anthropologist whose research focus is on women’s and infants’ nutrition, HIV and breastfeeding, and community-based interventions for improving growth and development of children. She was PI of an NICHD/NIH 60 village, 600 mother-infant pair randomized clinical trial to improve growth and development of infants in Andhra Pradesh, India and of a Bill and Melinda Gates study to analyze nutrition data of HIV-positive women enrolled in the BAN (Breastfeeding, Antiretroviral, and Nutrition) study in Malawi. She was PI of an NIH/NICHD R01, “Mothers and Others: Family-Based Obesity Prevention for Infants and Toddlers”. She has conducted substantive research in nearly a dozen countries. She received Kellogg International Nutrition Lectureship Award was named the 2017 Triangle Global Health Consortium Global Health Champion. She is Treasurer of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health and in 2019 was elected President of the Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition.