EVALUATION OF EFFECTIVENESS OF GOOD GROWTH MONITORING IN SOUTH INDIANVILLAGES

We conducted a community intervention trial in 12 villages in Tamil Na du, India to evaluate the benefits of growth monitoring. The villages were divided into 6 ''growth-monitoring package'' of intervention vill ages (GMP) and 6 ''non-growth-monitoring package'' of intervention vil lages (NGM). A functioning primary health care system was in place in all 12 villages. One village nutrition worker in each of the 12 villag es implemented a set of interventions including health and nutritional education. About 550 children under the age of 60 months were studied over 4 years in GMP villages and a similar number of children in NGM villages. The interventions were identical in the two sets of villages except for the use of growth charts in education in the 6 GMP village s. The nutrition worker in the NGM villages had the same contact time as in the GMP villages but advised mothers without the benefit of grow th charts. The research team, independently of the nutrition worker, d id anthropometric studies on children in all villages every 4 to 5 mon ths. Comparisons were done by calculating monthly gains in stature, an d weight, and the significance of differences observed was adjusted fo r age and sex. After 30 months of interventions, similar improvements in growth were seen in GMP and NGM children. The interventions seemed to have improved the nutritional status of young children in both grou ps of villages. In view of the lack of additional benefit from growth monitoring over other educational interventions, we question its use a s part of child survival programmes in India.