Conditional cash transfer and/or lipid-based nutrient supplement targeting the first 1000 d of life increased attendance at preventive care services but did not improve linear growth in young children in rural Mali: results of a cluster-randomized controlled trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Copper (Supplement).

The researchers evaluated the additional impact of the distribution of cash and/or LNS on mean height-for-age z scores (HAZ; primary outcome), stunting (HAZ < -2), and on intermediate outcomes along the program impact pathways.

Why It Was Studied

In 2014, the World Food Programme added to an ongoing health and nutrition program named "Santé Nutritionnelle à Assise Communautaire dans la région de Kayes" (SNACK), the distribution of cash to mothers and/or lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS) to children aged 6-23 mo, conditional upon attendance at community health centers (CHCs) during the first 1000 d of life.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants, young children, young adults and adults, both men and women.

Cross-sectional surveys among 12- to 42-mo-old children and their mothers were conducted at baseline (2013, n = 5046) and at endline (2016, n = 5098).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

Because people in this Copper (Supplement) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

In a cluster-randomized controlled trial using a 2 × 2 factorial design, 76 CHCs were randomly assigned to deliver either SNACK, SNACK + Cash, SNACK + LNS, or SNACK + Cash + LNS.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Child Development, Cross-Sectional Studies, Dietary Supplements, Growth Disorders, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena and Mali.

The authors tagged it with the keywords children, community health center, conditional cash transfer, linear growth and lipid-based nutrient supplement.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Copper (Supplement).

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2019 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.