SMARTer nutrition levels for disaster risk reduction
When disaster hits, assessing the severity and magnitude of its impact is often determined through household surveys based on the two most frequently used public health indicators: the prevalence of undernutrition and the death rate of the population. When needs are high – both at a geographical and beneficiary scope – it is important to know where to respond, where the largest needs are, and where to concentrate supplies. This is when data quality plays a pivotal role, particularly when prioritizing resources, but also in monitoring the extent to which humanitarian relief is meeting the needs of the population, and thus, evaluating the overall impact of the current response in order to better prepare for future crises.
The SMART (Standardised Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions) methodology for nutrition assessments is internationally recognised as the reference and standard survey tool among humanitarian and development stakeholders in 50 countries. Data collected and analysed using SMART provides ministries of health, United Nations (UN) agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society with timely, high-quality information to make better investment choices based on good quality data at district, regional and national levels. Balancing simplicity and technical soundness, SMART survey results also feed into surveillance and early warning systems such as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSnet), the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), and the Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations (NICS), detecting and monitoring disasters’ impact on nutrition.
Access to quality nutrition information can only enhance the preparedness and early warning for adverse events affecting the health status of vulnerable populations and as such is a vital component of disaster risk reduction (DRR). The lack of available quality undernutrition information hinders the tracking of real progress at the global and national levels, the identification of health and gender inequalities within countries with limited amount of disaggregated data, and the measure of prevalence of the growing double burden across humanitarian and development contexts. With 52 million children under 5 suffering from acute undernutrition (wasting) and 155 million from chronic undernutrition (stunting) , more attention should be given to the role of quality nutrition information in DRR in order to mitigate future cases of undernutrition.
The SMART Global Project, led by Action Against Hunger, supports nutrition stakeholders by ensuring that individual health professionals have the capacity to provide high quality and up-to-date data. Endorsed by the Global Nutrition Cluster with additional technical insight from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Action Against Hunger ensures access to the most up-to-date tools and technical briefs on nutrition assessments, as well as access to SMART learning events and trainings.
Victoria Sauveplane is the Senior Program Manager at Action Against Hunger - Canada and an expert in the SMART methodology. As a nutritionist specialized in nutrition assessments, her field experience includes capacity building initiatives for local stakeholders, including staff from ministries of health, UN agencies, NGOs and academia, and the provision of technical support for surveys undertaken across Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, South Asia, South East Asia and Latin America. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health Nutrition from the University of Glasgow and a Bachelor’s from McGill University in Biomedical Sciences.