Human Health Challenges Relating to Nutrition
Vitamin A Deficiency
Funding for this project (# 2016-07259) was provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Higher Education Challenge (HEC) grant program. This project is in collaboration with the University of Arkansas, Texas Tech University, and The Borlaug Institute at Texas A&M University.
Overview
Vitamin A deficiency has been recognized as a public health issue in developing countries. Economic constraints, sociocultural limitations, insufficient dietary intake, and poor absorption leading to depleted vitamin A stores in the body have been regarded as potential determinants of the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. Vitamin A deficiency is exacerbated by many factors, such as lack of education, poor sanitation, absence of new legislation and enforcement of existing food laws, and week monitoring and surveillance system. In this lesson you will learn the causes, risk factors and outcomes of vitamin A deficiency. Based on this learning, you will give a recommended program to address vitamin A deficiency and improve vitamin A status in short, medium, and long term in developing countries.
Objectives
- Identify symptoms of vitamin A deficiency
- Understand causes and key risk factors of vitamin A deficiency
- Based on the information presented what recommendation would you make in the short, medium, and long run to address vitamin A deficiency
- Identify stakeholders in the country that you would engage in implementing the recommendations.
Level of Instruction
Graduate
Learner Prerequisite Knowledge
Micronutrient deficiency, vitamin A, vitamin A deficiency, policy and program interventions .
Instructor Preparation/Notes
Read all associated materials, have an existing knowledge of the subject matter.
Instructions
Learner time required: This lesson should take the well-informed student 2-3 hours to complete.
As you prepare your recommended policy, program, or intervention, use the following questions as a guide:
- State the nutrition-related problem, its causes, and symptoms.
- Describe in details a sustainable program that you would propose to overcome the problem.
- State the objectives to the program and explain how you would evaluate its effectiveness.
- Outline ways that the different countries in the world have approached vitamin A deficiency problem
Learning Materials
Websites:
- Vitamin A deficiency: https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/vitamin-a-deficiency/
Documents/Research Papers:
- Public health programs for vitamin A deficiency control: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3936688/
- Prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in South Asia: causes, outcomes, and possible remedies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905635/
- Combating vitamin A deficiency: overcoming obstacles to optimize the food-based approach: https://worldnutritionjournal.org/index.php/wn/article/view/152
Assessment:
Self-exam
Additional Materials and Resources
- Video: Saving children’s lives in Senegal with vitamin A supplements
- Video: Micronutrient deficiencies – Vitamin A deficiency
- Vitamin A: moving the food-based approach forward
Creative Commons Attribution:
Attribution-NonCommercial–ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Mary Murimi
Ph.D., RD
College of Human Sciences
Texas Tech University