Optima Nutrition Modelling

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The model has a flexible intervention set that includes a variety of vitamin supplementation programs, infant and young child feeding education, treatment of severe acute malnutrition, treatment and prevention of diarrhoea, fortification of foods, water sanitation and hygiene (WASH), family planning and malaria prevention interventions.

Optima Nutrition can answer the following types of questions:

• How can a fixed budget be allocated across programs and geographical regions to minimize malnutrition and associated conditions?
• Which programs and geographical regions should receive priority additional funding, if it were available?
• How might trends in undernutrition change under different funding scenarios?
• How close is a country likely to get to their nutrition targets with the current volume of funding, reallocated optimally?

The Optima Nutrition software was conceptualised and developed by the Optima Consortium for Decision Science with technical input from the World Bank, and is owned by Optima Consortium for Decision Science, Ltd.

To access the Optima Nutrition open source model, click here. Access the user guide and training materials here.

Optima Nutrition is a quantitative tool that can provide practical advice to governments to assist with the allocation of current or projected budgets across nutrition programs. The model contains a geospatial component to determine funding allocations that minimize stunting, wasting, anaemia or under-five mortality at both the national and sub-national levels.

2017 – ongoing

The primary Consortium partners for developing and applying the Optima suite of tools were University College London.

Optima Nutrition was developed and applied in close partnership and with funding from global health agencies including the World Bank and also receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.