Project Lead(s): Peter Rohloff, Maria del Pilar Grazioso
Almost half (49.8%) of children under five in Guatemala are stunted, the highest prevalence of any country in Latin America. Stunting, or short height-for-age, refers to reduced physical growth as a result of malnutrition, and has a profound impact on a child’s developing brain.
This project will use online crowdfunding to finance an intensive in-home intervention for severely stunted children. Representing the first use of crowdfunding for this purpose, donors and patients will convene via Watsi.org, which will harnesses the power of individual patient narratives and social networks to dramatically increase the resources available for nutrition programming. This overcomes the primary barrier for a personal approach to the financing of health programs: cost. This intervention includes micronutrient supplementation, food support for the most food-insecure families, growth monitoring, and extensive individualized counselling of caregivers.
The intervention will be compared to the standard care approach to child stunting, which follows national policy guidelines and includes growth monitoring and micronutrient supplementation.