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Estimating the cost of scaling up direct nutrition interventions at national and subnational levels: insights from India (632.15)
Author(s) -
McDonald Christine,
Me Purnima,
Chakrabarti Suman
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.632.15
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , activity based costing , malnutrition , intervention (counseling) , unit (ring theory) , environmental health , business , public economics , medicine , economic growth , economics , accounting , nursing , mathematics education , mathematics
Background: Maternal and child undernutrition in India is high. National programs are designed to provide recommended direct nutrition interventions, but current coverage is low and little is known about costs of closing gaps. Costs of scaling up nutrition are calculated at the global level, but they do not capture national policy guidelines, delivery platforms or local unit costs. Objective: To estimate national and state‐level costs of delivering direct nutrition interventions in India and identify local costing needs. Methods: Interventions included for implementation by government through local delivery platforms were costed. Size of target populations (TP) for each intervention were estimated using national data. Unit costs (UC) were derived or obtained from programmatic data & other sources. Cost of delivering an intervention at 100% coverage = (UC*projected TP). Results: Over US$ 5 billion/year is required to deliver chosen interventions in India. Cost estimates are constrained by limited local data on UC rather than data on TP. Differences between government budget & expenditures (B&E) and intervention‐based cost estimates are difficult to calculate because B&E are often not reported by intervention. Conclusion: There is an urgent need for local cost studies on delivery of high‐impact interventions to ensure accurate national and sub‐national nutrition budgeting in India and in other countries. Grant Funding Source : Supported by: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, through POSHAN, led by IFPRI.