Nutrition Specific Vs Nutrition Sensitive Interventions: 14 Differences

Nutrition Specific and sensitive intervention

Table of Contents

Introduction:

Nutrition is the science of food that is absorbed by our body and as a result it helps in the proper functioning of the human body.
Nutrition is the building blocks of our body and play specific roles in maintaining our health.
In scientific terms, Nutrition refers to the intake, absorption, and utilization of food in relation to our body’s dietary needs.
Nutrition has always been a key indicator of development. Thus it always has been the priority for development
Improved nutrition can lead the progress in health, education, employment, empowerment of women and reduction of poverty and inequality.
However, despite the growing body of evidence on importance of investing in good nutrition to avoid malnutrition and its long-lasting negative effects on human development, governments and key stakeholders still fall short on action.
Therefore, to tackle malnutrition, a broad array of interventions ranging from agriculture to education to specific health and nutrition interventions are implemented.
Hence the nutrition interventions are broadly classified into two categories:
- Nutrition-specific interventions
- Nutrition-sensitive interventions

Benefits of Nutritional Interventions:

Decreases mortality and morbidity
Increases cognitive, motor, and socio-emotional development
Increases school performance and learning capacity
Increases adult stature
Decreases obesity and non-communicable disease cases
Improves early childhood development (Bhutta et al., 2013), reducing infectious disease burden (Fogel, 1993; Null et al., 2018) and improving treatment adherence (Kenworthy, 2017).

What is Nutrition Specific Intervention?

Nutrition-specific interventions are the interventions which address the immediate cause of malnutrition.
Nutrition specific interventions focuses on those interventions that target the direct determinants of nutrition.
Nutrition specific interventions are largely delivered by the health sector.
Some of the examples of nutrition-specific interventions are:
- Maternal micronutrient supplementation and disease prevention
- Support for exclusive breast-feeding and complementary feeding
- Micronutrient supplementation etc.

UNICEF Conceptual Framework of Malnutrition showing Nutrition Specific Interventions and Nutrition Sensitive Interventions — Source: Black et al, 2013

What is Nutrition Sensitive Intervention?

Nutrition-sensitive interventions are those interventions whose primary objective is not nutrition, but that which have potential to improve food and nutrition security of beneficiaries.
Nutrition sensitive interventions are those interventions that influence the underlying determinants of nutrition.
Nutrition sensitive interventions are largely delivered by the education, agriculture, livestock, water and sanitation, women and children and other sectors.
Nutrition-sensitive intervention includes integration of following approaches:
Agriculture: Making nutritious food more accessible and available to everyone, and supporting small farms as a source of income
Clean Water and Sanitation: Improving access to reduce infection and disease
Education and Employment: Making sure children learn and earn sufficient income as adults through maintain their energy
Healthcare: Improving access to services to ensures that people are healthy and improve health care seeing behavior
Support for Resilience: During emergencies and conflicts there is a need for stronger, healthier population and sustained prosperity
Women’s Empowerment: Women are empowered to be leaders in Nutrition-Sensitive Approaches
Some of the examples of nutrition sensitive interventions:
- Increased production and consumption of fresh fruits
- Promotion of hand washing practices etc.

Examples of Nutrition Specific and Nutrition Sensitive Interventions:

14 Differences between Nutrition Specific and Nutrition Sensitive Interventions:

Nutrition-Specific Interventions	Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions
Nutrition specific interventions are those which address immediate causes of nutrition.	Nutrition sensitive interventions are those that address underlying causes of undernutrition.
It refers to interventions that address the immediate determinants of fetal and child nutrition and development	It influences the underlying determinants of fetal and child nutrition and development
The objective of nutrition specific intervention is to address malnutrition.	The objective of nutrition sensitive intervention is not to address malnutrition but those which are interlinked with nutrition.
Nutrition specific intervention will contribute more to the reduction of malnutrition as compared to nutrition sensitive intervention.	Nutrition sensitive intervention will relatively contribute less to the reduction of malnutrition as compared to nutrition specific interventions.
Increased nutrition specific interventions lead to sharper decline in the proportion of stunted children.	Nutrition sensitive interventions play a supportive role in the decline of stunting in children.
Nutrition specific interventions improve the nutrition status directly.	Nutrition sensitive interventions does not necessarily target nutrition but helps to improve nutrition status indirectly.
It can solve the immediate problem regarding the malnutrition.	It solves the root cause and thus can have greater impact on reducing malnutrition and creating resilience for future.
Nutrition specific interventions doesn’t have wider scale, coverage, and effectiveness	Nutrition sensitive interventions can serve as delivery platforms for nutrition-specific interventions, potentially increasing their scale, coverage, and effectiveness.
Studies have shown a statistically significant association between nutrition specific interventions and reduction in stunting.	No such statistically significant associations can be found between nutrition sensitive interventions and stunting.
All nutrition specific interventions implemented alone or jointly, lead to improved health outcome.	All nutrition specific interventions implemented alone does not necessarily lead to improved health outcome. E.g.: improved water and sanitation alone do not improve the health outcome
It is applicable only in local setting with specific nutrition programs.	It has wide application with context sensitive application
It is easy to understand the relationship between nutrition specific intervention and nutrition status.	It is relatively difficult for a person to understand the relationship between nutrition sensitive intervention and nutrition status.
It can create dramatic impact on reducing malnutrition but cannot meet up with reducing standard targets.	It can meet up with reducing the targets along with nutrition specific intervention
Examples of nutrition specific interventions: Vitamin A supplementation Zinc supplementation Salt iodization Complementary feeding Deworming Dietary diversification among pregnant mothers Adolescent health and pre conception nutrition	Examples of nutrition sensitive interventions: Agriculture and food security Social protection Early childhood development and education Maternal mental health Women empowerment Water sanitation and hygiene Health and family planning Schooling