Public Health Interventions to Reduce Stunting in Toddlers: A Systematic Review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Handling stunting in toddlers is not only the responsibility of the government, but the most important thing is family and community responsibility. Public health interventions involving the family and community are important for stunting prevention because the family environment is one of the factors that determine the provision of adequate conditions for the nutritional status and development of children. AIM: The purpose of this systematic review is to synthesize various public health interventions that are practice-based evidence derived from programs implemented to reduce stunting in toddlers. METHODS: Initial steps doing this systematic review articles included in this study were retrieved from ProQuest, EBSCOhost, MEDLINE/CINAHL (Academic Search Complete) that were published within 2011–2019 and written in English. Study Quality Assessment was done using keywords and by assessing compatibility of the articles with the study context. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines was used to analyze the found articles. RESULTS: After filtering process, there were 11 articles from 859 articles emphasize on using a combination of two or more Public Health Interventions to reduce stunting in toddlers. The most common public health interventions done to reduce stunting in toddlers are health teaching, counseling, collaboration, and community organizing. CONCLUSIONS: Here, we show that public health interventions performed by public health nurses to reduce stunting require the involvement of the community itself, especially the family. Public health interventions can be combined with one or more other public health interventions to increase success in preventing stunting in children under five.