Alive & Thrive India Role of Medical Colleges to Promote MIYCN in Uttar Pradesh & Bihar

The Alive & Thrive (A&T) initiative in India worked as a Knowledge Partner with government, other development partners, organizations, academia and professional bodies to provide technical support to national programs related to Maternal and Infant Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN). A&T contributed to strengthening policies and systems to deliver to women and children the nutrition they need for healthy lives. Engaging with Medical Institutions is one of the strategies that A&T adopted. Medical Institutions and Medical professional associations can play a role in convening state and national opinion leaders. A&T supported state level medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar in: (1) Becoming centres of excellence for MIYCN and encouraging medical institutions to adopt a “whole site” approach that focused on strengthening the capacity and knowledge of hospital staff in promoting and advocating the practice of evidence based MIYCN interventions and becoming the champions for advocacy of evidence based best practices. (2) Ensuring their active participation in national programs implemented at state level in Bihar and UP through support to technical trainings for public health and nutrition cadres, supportive supervision and monitoring. (3) Strengthening the medical colleges post-delivery continuum of care through stronger community linkages with frontline workers. A&T implemented this project on a pilot basis to strengthen a few selected Medical Colleges as Centres of Excellence for MIYCN program in the two priority states of UP and Bihar. This quantitative cross-sectional baseline study was conducted to understand whether, with access to technical assistance, medical colleges can improve the ways in which MIYCN is addressed in their pre-service training curricula, their health service delivery, their research and in the ways, they provide technical support to government health programs. The study was conducted in 8 Medical Colleges, four each in the state of UP and Bihar. The baseline study served to identify: gaps in MICYN knowledge among health providers that could be addressed through either pre-service or in service training; opportunities for including MIYCN content in the pre-service curricula of Medical and nursing Colleges; key contact points with pregnant women and mothers of children under - one during which MIYCN services can be provided; and identify capacity needs for conducting research on MIYCN. The baseline objectives were: (1) To assess changes in the degree to which maternal, infant and young child nutrition (MIYCN) is addressed in the pre-service curriculum of medical colleges including the attached nursing colleges. (2) To assess changes in the degree to which MIYCN interventions are included in the routine delivery of services offered by the departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Paediatrics and Preventive and Social Medicine in medical colleges. (3) To understand how medical colleges, can contribute to improving research (to inform policy), and planning, implementation & monitoring of MIYCN programs. The target population for the baseline evaluation study was clubbed into two groups: groups to assess the pre-service component of the study; and service delivery/integration component of the study. These were both the service recipient and the service provider from the department of Paediatrics, OBGY and PSM. (1) Undergraduate (UG) Medical students. (2) Undergraduate (UG) Nursing students. (3) Post graduate students from the 3 department i.e. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Paediatrics and Preventive and Social Medicine. (4) Pregnant women seeking ANC services. (5) Women seeking delivery services. (6) Mothers of children in the age group of 0 to 1 years seeking services from the hospital. (7) Nursing Staff providing maternal services from Obstetrics and Gynecology department. (8) Nursing staff providing child services from Paediatrics department. (9) Counsellor posted in the hospital. (10) Teaching faculty from the 3 department i.e. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Paediatrics and Preventive and Social Medicine.