Publications

Adolescent malnutrition is a significant public health challenge in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), with long-term consequences for health and development. Community-based interventions have the potential to address multiple forms of malnutrition and improve the health outcomes of adolescents. However, there is a limited understanding of the content, implementation and effectiveness of these interventions. This scoping review aims to synthesise evidence on community-based interventions targeting multiple forms of malnutrition among adolescents in LMICs and describe their effects on nutrition and health.

Adolescent malnutrition and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) present significant public health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with long-lasting impacts on health and development. The ARISE-NUTRINT initiative seeks to address these issues by improving nutrition literacy and promoting healthier diets among adolescents and youth. Through community-based interventions, digital tools, and policy evaluations, this initiative aims to reduce the growing burden of NCDs in SSA. This publication outlines the design, implementation, and expected impact of the project, providing a roadmap for scalable solutions to enhance youth health and wellbeing.

Regular physical activity (PA) is essential for maintaining health and wellbeing across all life stages, particularly in children and adolescents. Despite its benefits, most adolescents fail to meet the World Health Organization’s PA recommendations, with global trends indicating alarmingly low participation rates, particularly among girls. This issue is pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where physical inactivity is a significant public health concern, contributing to rising obesity rates. Environmental, socio economic, and cultural barriers further exacerbate low PA engagement, including extreme weather conditions, lack of recreational infrastructure, gender norms, and economic constraints. Addressing these challenges requires targeted interventions, including education, improved infrastructure, and policy implementation. Innovative programs such as ARISE-NUTRINT and DASH aim to enhance adolescent health in SSA through nutrition and PA-focused strategies. This commentary paper explores existing barriers to PA, evaluates promising on-going efforts and interventions, and highlights opportunities for promoting PA in SSA through community engagement, digital platforms, and cross-sector collaboration. Implementing sustainable and culturally tailored strategies is crucial to reversing current trends and fostering long term health benefits for adolescents in SSA.

Community-based interventions hold promise for addressing adolescent malnutrition, but there is limited knowledge of their nature and impact on adolescent nutrition outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This scoping review aimed to characterize community-based adolescent nutrition interventions in LMICs and summarize their effects on adolescent nutrition outcomes. Community-based interventions hold promise for improving adolescent nutritional status in LMICs. However, our review highlights gaps in the evidence base, marked by significant variability in intervention design, delivery, and implementation platforms. This underscores the need for integrated approaches and rigorous evaluations of their implementation outcomes, including acceptability, relevance, feasibility, effectiveness, and sustainability, in addressing adolescent nutrition challenges.