Poshan Tracker

Poshan Tracker

The Lancet, Regional Health- South East Asia published a scientific commentary titled, ‘India’s Poshan Tracker: data-driven tool for maternal and child nutrition’. The commentary is co authored by Prof. Lindsay Jaacks, Professor of Global Health and Nutrition, Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems, University of Edinburgh, Dr. Ananya Awasthi, Founder and Director, Anuvaad Solutions and Ms. Apoorva Kalra, Program Manager, Anuvaad Solutions.

The commentary highlights that as part of Ministry of Women and Child Development’s flagship Poshan 2.0 policy guidelines, ‘Poshan Tracker’ is the largest mobile phone-based nutrition monitoring system in the world that tracks the growth of more than 80 million children every month in India. Using data from Poshan Tracker dashboard, it provides an overview on growth monitoring and anthropometric outcomes of children, the functioning of Anganwadi centres and receipt of take home or food rations to women, children & adolescent girls in high focus areas.

In the commentary, national level data from Poshan Tracker was analyzed to understand how this innovation in accountability may be influencing real-time monitoring of target beneficiaries and the provision of nutritional services in India. As per the Poshan Tracker dashboard, 39% of children beneficiaries aged 0–6 years experienced stunting and 18% were underweight. Among children 0–5 years, 6% experienced wasting and 6% were overweight. The data also shows that 20.9 million beneficiaries received take home rations for at least 21 days as compared to 4.1 million in July 2022. (as per data from Poshan Tracker dashboard, September 2023). However, the authors point out that some of this increase could be due to improved reporting.

The commentary also features a comparative analysis between the latest population-based anthropometric data for children in India, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5, 2019–2021) and Poshan Tracker data. On average, stunting was estimated to be 1.86 percentage points lower in Poshan Tracker data than NFHS-5; underweight was 13.72 percentage points lower; and wasting was 12.16 percentage points lower. Overweight, in contrast, was 0.68 percentage points higher in Poshan Tracker, on average, than in NFHS-5. The authors point out that several factors could explain the difference, from differences in the instruments used to measure the weight of children to a decline in the rate of underweight over time. They pointed out that further research is needed to understand the difference.

It concludes with the key take-away that tools like Poshan Tracker increase accountability and help ensure that nutrition interventions reach the last mile. And suggests that future work should test the pathways by which Poshan Tracker can impact nutritional outcomes. The Poshan Tracker therefore represents an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the transformative potential of large-scale real-time nutrition monitoring.

The Lancet publication (LANSEA_100381) can be accessed using the link below:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lansea/article/PIIS2772-3682(24)00030-1/fulltext

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Anuvaad Solutions

Anuvaad Solutions is a registered LLP (ID Number AAY-4683). All project initiatives are supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Anuvaad Solutions LLP