Strategies to reduce malnutrition among children with allocative efficiency analyses

Malnutrition is responsible for over three million child deaths each year with 36 countries carrying the bulk of the burden.

There are proven community-based interventions to target malnutrition; however, resources are limited, so funds must be allocated to programs that achieve the maximum impact.

Optima Nutrition is an allocative efficiency model that quantifies the benefits of providing nutrition-based interventions to target stunting and mortality in children under-five.

Some possible projects include:

• Applying the Optima model to a specific country case study. This could involve performing analysis of the effects of scaling up an intervention(s) to best meet the needs of local governments surrounding child malnutrition, or performing a resource optimisation to determine the most cost-effective allocation of projected budgets.
• Developing analytical expression for complex interactions between nutrition-based interventions and incorporating them into the model.
• Including the effects of interventions such as hygiene programs or family-planning into the model.
• Extending the model to include additional risk factors for stunting or mortality, such as anemia, wasting and child obesity.

Prospective students will be expected to have skills in quantitative data analysis, as well as written and verbal communication.

A keen interest in health outcomes, and developing mathematical modelling and programming skills is essential.

Some background in epidemiology, public health, mathematics, economics, physics, or computer science is preferred.