Anemia Mukt Bharat Index: Methodology and State Rankings of Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation Coverage in India, 2018–2019 to 2022–2023

Abstract

In 2018, the Government of India launched the Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) program to accelerate reductions in the prevalence of anemia among children aged 6–59 months, children aged 5– 9 years, adolescents aged 10–19 years, pregnant women, and lactating mothers through 6 programmatic interventions and 6 institutional mechanisms. We describe the process of computing the AMB index, aimed at providing timely and systematic information on iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation coverage across these groups to aid in evaluating the effectiveness of the program. This study presents data from fiscal year 2018–2019 to 2022– 2023 on IFA supplementation coverage among these 5 groups. We calculated the AMB index that provides an average for IFA supplementation coverage for target groups. Data on the target groups were acquired from the AMB dashboard, and information on IFA supplementation coverage was sourced from the health management information system. The AMB index confirmed that between 2018-2019 and 2022–2023 IFA supplementation coverage increased overall in India by 22.1 percentage points, from 35.5% to 57.6%. During this period, IFA supplementation coverage increased for all target groups including pregnant women, children aged 6–59 months, children 5–9 years, adolescents aged 10–19 years, and lactating mothers. The supply chain management and reporting of the data on the portal were among the key factors that substantially impacted the IFA supplementation coverage. The IFA supplementation coverage will significantly increase if the IFA supply chain and reporting standards improve. We discuss the policy implications and suggestions to improve the overall IFA supplementation coverage across India.