Gender influences on child survival, health and nutrition: a ... - Unicef

<strong>Gender</strong> Influences On Child Survival, Health And Nutrition: A Narrative Review
Key messages on gender-sensitive interventions addressing child health and nutrition
‣ There are very few examples of evaluated gender-sensitive interventions that explicitly aim to
impact young child survival, health and nutrition;
‣ Addressing modes of service delivery must involve making services more accessible to carers of
children; interventions which have included a focus on accessing households directly through
home visits or that address barriers to reaching facilities and seek to mobilize and engage
communities have been effective in improving child health and nutrition outcomes;
‣ Interventions have also demonstrated the benefits of including senior females, such as
grandmothers in improving attitudes and practices regarding infant nutrition;
‣ Beyond the realm of child health and nutrition programming, interventions addressing women’s
financial struggles, through cash transfers and micro credit schemes have shown benefits for
child health and nutrition but these kinds of initiatives need careful planning and monitoring to
avoid negative consequences such as the reinforcing of gender norms and gender-based
violence;
‣ Overall the review of interventions demonstrates that there are benefits to be reaped by
designing programmes that use gender-sensitive approaches to address child survival, health
and nutrition.
‣ There is a need to document gender-sensitive interventions on child health and nutrition and to
make links between other interventions aimed at improving gender-equity in health (e.g.
addressing violence) and specific child health outcomes.
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