Climate-sensitive nutrients, undernutrition and malaria

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ina Danquah
• Subject Area: Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine ; Nutritional Sciences
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409670289

The project P2 addresses the projected agricultural losses based on the current CO2 emissions until 2050 and their consequences for the nutritional status of children under-5 years of age living in two selected regions of sub-Saharan Africa. P2 determines the potential of an integrated agriculture and nutrition program as an adaptation strategy to improve the children’s nutritional status for climatesensitive nutrients in rural Burkina Faso and Kenya, where climate change will impact agriculture most strongly. The intervention focuses on bio-diversification of subsistence farming by home gardens, and is accompanied by nutrition and health counselling using the 7 Essential Nutrition Action messages by the World Health Organization. For sub-Saharan Africa, bio-diversification constitutes one of the most promising and practicable adaptation strategies for CO2-dependent agricultural losses, for both, the absolute amounts of crops and for the plant contents of protein, iron and zinc. As a novelty, P2 identifies the controversially discussed, potential effects of such an agriculture and nutrition program on the risk of clinical malaria in children under-5 years of age. In the first project phase, the adaptation program was tailored to the needs of the Kenyan region in collaboration with Siaya County Ministries of Health and Agriculture and the non-governmental organization Centre for African Bio-Entrepreneurship (CABE). We determined the horticultural crops to be cultivated and the practicability and the acceptability of the program. A clusterrandomized controlled trial with 2 x 600 households was implemented. We recruited households with children at the age of complementary feed introduction (6-24 months) and followed them up for 1 year. In phase 2, we will establish the effects of the intervention program on changes in dietary habits, the status of climate-sensitive nutrients, and the risk of clinical malaria among the children after 2 years. We will define the necessary investments to scale-up such intervention programs to the provincial, state, and national levels. Lastly, we will generate adaptation-response functions characterizing the effects of the agricultural bio-diversification and nutrition counselling program under future climate scenarios.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2936: Climate Change and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa
• International Connection: Kenya
• International Co-Applicant: Dr. Erick M.O. Muok, Ph.D.