Impact of a collaborative childhood anaemia intervention programme in Peru

Objectives To evaluate the impact of a 12-month multi-modal public health intervention programme for treating and preventing anaemia among children aged 6 months to 4 years in an underserved community in Peru. Methods The intervention included nutritional education, use of a Lucky Iron Fish® cooking tool, and dietary supplementation. The primary outcome measure was anaemia resolution. Secondary outcomes included absolute changes in haemoglobin, change in knowledge survey scores and adherence to interventions. Chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U-test were employed to identify associations between anaemia and intervention-related measures. Variables found to be significantly associated in bivariate analysis or of clinical importance were included in a logistic regression model. Results Of the 406 children enrolled, 256 (63.1%) completed the programme. Of those, 34.0% had anaemia at baseline; this decreased to 13.0% over 12 months. The mean haemoglobin for all ages at baseline was 11.3 g/dL (SD 0.9). At 12 months, the mean was 11.9 g/dL (SD 0.8), with a mean increase of 0.5 g/dL (95% CI 0.4-0.6). Children with anaemia at baseline saw an increase of 1.19 g/dL at the 12-month follow-up (95% CI 1.12-1.37). Parents correctly answered 79.0% of knowledge assessment questions at baseline, which increased to 86.6% at 12 months. Conclusions We observed a reduction in the prevalence of mild to moderate anaemia among study participants in this vulnerable population and conclude that multi-modal intervention programmes providing nutrition education in conjunction with low-cost iron supplementation and easy-to-use Lucky Iron Fish® cooking tools may reduce and prevent anaemia in children.