Module 2: Anaemia | Standardised Expanded Nutrition Survey

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of Module 2 are as follows:

Primary objective

To measure the prevalence of anaemia in children aged 6-59 months and in women of reproductive age between 15-49 years (non-pregnant).

Secondary objective

To determine enrolment into antenatal care (ANC) and coverage of iron-folic acid supplementation in pregnant women.

The standard target groups to routinely include in an anaemia assessment in refugee contexts are: children aged 6-59 months and non-pregnant women of reproductive age between 15-49 years (including lactating women).

Collect anaemia data on other age groups if necessary and if feasible. Contact UNHCR HQ / Regional Offices for further guidance on assessing other groups.

KEY MESSAGES

Data on the prevalence of anaemia is essential to collect in refugee settings for monitoring purposes. This module is only intended to be used for assessing anaemia status of population through nutrition surveys and is distinct from assessment at a clinic or hospital.
Data should be collected through a nutrition survey on the prevalence of anaemia among children aged 6-59 months and non-pregnant women of reproductive age (15-49 years). Although rare, other age groups are sometimes also included when justified.
The standard questionnaires provided in Module 2 should be used for the collection of anaemia data.
Standard methods should be followed for measuring haemoglobin (Hb) using the HemoCue and for standardising the process to maintain the quality, reliability and usability of the results.
Providing good quality training to survey teams collecting Hb data, supervising them well, and checking the quality of the equipment and measurements on a regular basis throughout the survey will help ensure that the anaemia data are reliable.
There are standard ways of reporting anaemia results that should be followed in all nutrition survey reports produced in refugee contexts.

CAUTION!

There will be ANC clinics in most refugee settings to take care of and follow-up on pregnant and lactating women. A nutrition survey is a good opportunity to ask about enrolment of the surveyed pregnant women into the ANC running in the area and ask if they are receiving iron-folic acid supplementation. This will only provide a rough estimation of the coverage of such programmes due to the small sample size of pregnant women found during nutrition surveys but can still highlight problems. This is why this objective should always be worded as a secondary objective.

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Module 2