Targeting School Feeding Programs at Vulnerable Sub-Groups

International Food Policy Research Institute

Status: Completed

Conditions: Malnutrition; Cognition

Treatments: Other: Take Home Rations; Other: In School Feeding

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01261182

WB-7135830

Details and patient eligibility

About

School feeding programs provide students meals conditional on school attendance, which can have impacts on school participation, cognition and learning, and nutritional outcomes. Although the literature on impacts of school feeding programs is substantial, high quality studies with evaluation designs that provide causal impact estimates are relatively few. Thus program impacts on educational, cognitive and nutritional outcomes are not well-understood, particularly in a field setting. Nutritional impacts in particular are questionable, which may be a result program design. Most studies provide only small transfers to children and examine average macro-nutrient effects of the transfer on the treated children, thus it is not surprising that detection of nutritional gains has been minimal.

This study is a cluster-randomized evaluation of a school feeding program administered by the World Food Programme in the Northern Ugandan Districts of Lira and Pader. The program provides substantially larger food rations than most programs (representing 1/3 of children's daily caloric needs and 99% of iron intake requirements).

The key research objectives are:

1. Impact on the treated: Assess the effectiveness of the program at improving nutritional status, education and cognitive and learning outcomes for school-age children, with particular attention to the anemia status of older school-age girls .
2. Impact on untreated but nutritionally vulnerable sub-groups: Assess the effectiveness of the program at reducing anemia prevalence in mothers and younger siblings.
3. Optimal program design: Assess the differential impacts of a program in which children are fed at school compared with one in which they are given dry rations to bring home.

Enrollment: 2,083 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 13 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• School age children

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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2,083 participants in 3 patient groups

In School Feeding

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: In School Feeding

Take Home Rations

Experimental group

Treatment:

Other: Take Home Rations

Control

No Intervention group