Program and Cost/Cost Effectiveness Implications for Ethiopia of adopting WHO Guidelines on Acute Malnutrition Admission and Discharge Criteria (The case of Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM): A Cluster randomized control and parallel study

By design this study is a cluster randomized control and parallel study. This study was conducted with the general objective of providing practical evidence on the program and cost/cost effectiveness implications for Ethiopia of aligning with the new global WHO and UNICEF cutoff points for identification of acute malnutrition (AM) and graduation from a CMAM program. It was conducted in two regions of Ethiopia - Oromia and Amhara - with each region providing two woredas for the study. The surveyed woredas were Legambo and Mekdella in Amhara region and Fedis and Meta in Oromia region. A total of 36 randomly selected health posts (HPs) were used (8 non-contingent HPs in each Oromia woreda and 10 non-contingent HPs in each Amhara woreda)本研究采用整群随机对照平行设计。本研究的总体目标是为埃塞俄比亚贴合世界卫生组织（WHO）与联合国儿童基金会（UNICEF）最新发布的急性营养不良（acute malnutrition, AM）识别界值，以及从社区管理急性营养不良（CMAM）项目中毕业的相关标准，提供实践依据，并阐明该举措在项目实施与成本、成本效益层面的相关影响。研究选取埃塞俄比亚的奥罗米亚（Oromia）与阿姆哈拉（Amhara）两个行政区开展，每个行政区各纳入2个沃雷达（woreda，埃塞俄比亚基层行政分区）作为研究单元。本次调研涉及的沃雷达分别为阿姆哈拉州的莱加姆博（Legambo）、梅克德拉（Mekdella），以及奥罗米亚州的费迪斯（Fedis）与梅塔（Meta）。本研究共纳入36个随机遴选的基层卫生所（health posts, HPs），其中奥罗米亚州的每个沃雷达各设8个非干预组卫生所，阿姆哈拉州的每个沃雷达各设10个非干预组卫生所。