Background: Over a half of century, Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) is
working to improve the under-nutrition in the child with its vast infrastructure
amounting routine analysis to guide the ongoing efforts to further improve its
effectiveness. To assess the trend of reported undernutrition among Objective:
children in a health block of a rural area of northern state of India. Methodology:
Routine report analysis for year 2011, 2012 and 2013 of study area, covering
population of 1,20,942 with a total of 13 ICDS circles. In study area, across Results:
all the age groups it was observed that grade-1 undernutrition (about 50.0%) was
reported relatively more than the grade 2 and 3 with a significant declining trend
across all age groups over a period of three years. The rate of decline was more for
grade-2 undernutrition, about 60.0% in 6 month to 1 year of age, and about 85.0% in
1-3 years and 3-6 years age group. Conclusion: Nil reporting of severe undernutrition
with the reported low prevalence of grade-2 as compare to grade-1 undernutrition
indicative of self reported success of the programme. Limitation of
information from any other source for undernutrition in the studied block, and a
comparison of state level information from nationwide survey indicated a reporting
bias (under-reporting) in the area and requires adjudication by an independent
survey.