Past drivers of and priorities for child undernutrition in South Asia: a mixed methods systematic review protocol

Nidhi Wali,Kingsley Agho,Andre M N Renzaho

doi:10.1186/s13643-019-1112-7

Abstract

BackgroundSouth Asia has one of the largest proportions of undernourished children in the world, especially stunting, wasting, and underweight as well as micronutrient deficiencies such as the deficiency of iron, vitamin A, and zinc. Undernutrition continues to pose a major threat to this region’s economic and social growth. This systematic review aims to assess the drivers and identify priorities for child undernutrition in South Asia. It aims to appraise, synthesise, and summarise literature to create an evidence base that looks at multiple faces of macro and micro child undernutrition in South Asia.MethodsA systematic review of published and grey literature on child undernutrition, including macro and micronutrient deficiencies, in South Asia covering the period January 2000 to September 2019 will be undertaken. Studies with all relevant study designs and those published in English will be considered for inclusion. Five academic databases will be searched: CINAHL, EMBASE, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus, in addition to various grey literature sources. The analysis will incorporate a narrative synthesis, meta-ethnography or a meta-analysis as appropriate, depending on the nature of the retrieved data. Quality of the included studies will be assessed by validated tools. The UNICEF conceptual framework on child undernutrition will be used to frame findings.DiscussionThis protocol is guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. The protocol gives an insight into the scope and parameters for the systematic review to be carried out.Systematic review registrationThe protocol was registered by the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews, reference CRD42018112696.

Highlights

South Asia has one of the largest proportions of undernourished children in the world, especially stunting, wasting, and underweight as well as micronutrient deficiencies such as the deficiency of iron, vitamin A, and zinc
There is no study that has collectively and systematically analysed the most consistent factors associated of child undernutrition, including of micronutrient deficiencies along with stunting, wasting, and underweight, across the entire South Asia region
This mixed-methods review will look at child undernutrition, including stunting, wasting, underweight and micronutrient deficiencies of iron, vitamin A, and zinc, assess its driving factors and identify priorities across the eight countries of South Asia

Summary

Methods

Study design This protocol is informed by the standard Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) reporting guidelines [26]. Intervention focus and design Studies to be included in this systematic review will be those that focus on stunting, wasting and underweight and micronutrient deficiencies of iron, vitamin A, and zinc in a South Asian country. A combination of the above-mentioned subheadings and free-text words will be used to search grey literature in key organisations websites, as listed below This list might be reviewed when undertaking the research. Titles will be screened to remove any obviously irrelevant studies followed by the screening of abstracts to confirm eligibility and relevance After this initial selection, full texts of studies will be reviewed for final inclusion.

Discussion

Background

Method of data collection

Findings