Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Abstract

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has severe health and economic consequences due to its impact on physical activity, cognitive development and depressed labor productivity. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition has endorsed iron fortification of condiments as it has been identified as a promising vehicle to reduce IDA due to its high levels of penetration throughout different socio-economic groups. Our objective is to assess the contribution of iron fortified condiments on the reduction of the burden of IDA in Côte D’Ivoire. We built an incidence-prevalence-mortality (IPM) model to estimate the burden of IDA in Côte D’Ivoire. The population was split into 3 age-groups (preschool-age children, school-age children and adults) and 10 socioeconomic clusters. The study linked the health consequences of IDA to cognitive deficits, lower school achievements and reduced productivity at work. The impact of fortified condiments was assessed by estimating the cost of illness before and after the hemoglobin levels of consumers were adjusted for the fortification effect. The total annual cost of IDA in the Ivorian population from 1 to 65 years of age was estimated at 304 thousand DALYs and over 900 million purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars. The impact of condiments was estimated to reduce the total burden of disease by 21.3 thousand DALYs (7%) and 61 million PPP USD (6%) related to production losses. Iron fortified condiments have a significant impact to reduce the burden of IDA, and can be an impactful element of fortification policies to reduce the burden of iron deficiency anemia.

Biography

Alberto Prieto Patron has completed his PhD at the University of Lausanne in Health Economics after finishing a Master’s degree in Science of Economics at the University of Lausanne and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of Guanajuato in Mexico. Previously working at Nestle Research Center, he has collaborated as external consultant with the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Additionally, he is the Programme Officer in Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI) and the Global Fund. He is originally from Mexico and back there, he has worked as a junior Legislative Advisor at the National Deputy Chamber.

Email: alberto.prietopatron@rdls.nestle.com