MASTER OF GLOBAL HEALTH
GLOH5136 Nutrition in Global Settings
SEMESTER 2, 2025
Assignment 2 – Nutrition Interventions (60% of Marks)
Assessment Task
Prepare a 3500-word written assignment using one of the following five scenarios:
Scenarios and questions
1. You manage a social protection program in a low- or middle-income country, and your
primary focus is on poverty reduction. UN organisations are urging you to make your
programs more nutrition-sensitive. They especially want to ensure that social protection
programs contribute to meeting the target of reducing low birth weight by 2030.
In preparing your essay, you should select a specific country and cover the following areas:
• Start your essay by briefly describing the epidemiology, trends, and disease
burden of low birth weight in that country.
• Also, describe the current programs and their strengths and limitations
• Outline the objectives of your nutrition-sensitive social protection program and
your approach to implementing the interventions.
• Describe your new strategy and the new package of interventions to make
social protection for poor pregnant women more nutrition-sensitive to reduce the
rates of low birth weight. Include a diagram showing the program’s impact
pathway.
• You should review the evidence regarding the effectiveness of the components of
your strategy in your setting or in other countries to justify their inclusion in the
program.
• When developing the nutrition-sensitive social protection program, explain and
justify the choices between unconditional cash transfers, conditional cash
transfers, and food supplements.
2. You are a manager of a child nutrition program in a middle- or high-income country and
have identified a significant increase in the availability and consumption of commercial milk
formulas and complementary foods marketed for older infants and young children (ages 6-36
months). Many of these products are nutritionally inadequate and ultra-processed, and some,
such as milk for toddlers, are socially unnecessary. There are concerns that these products
displace breastfeeding and healthy complementary foods.
In preparing your essay, select a specific country and cover the following areas:
• Begin your essay by briefly describing trends in infant and young child feeding,
and if possible, find relevant data or studies describing changes in purchasing
behaviours or consumption of commercial products.
• Explain what factors might drive the changes in the above indicators and the
consumption of these products, including commercial determinants, such as
marketing.
• Describe the policy situation in your country, including the extent to which the
International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes has been
implemented and other relevant policies that influence the marketing and
consumption of these products.
• Outline the objectives of your food system approach and your approach to
implementing the interventions
• Describe how policies will be strengthened to protect, promote, and support
breastfeeding and reduce the harmful marketing of commercial foods for infants
and young children.
• You should review the evidence regarding the effectiveness of your food system
strategy in your setting or other countries to justify your approach in the essay.
3. The Finance Department has evaluated the iron/folic acid supplementation program in
your country (a low- or middle-income country) and questions whether the investment is
worthwhile because the levels of anaemia remain high in pregnant and non-pregnant women
of reproductive age despite the program. The Minister of Health requests a new strategy to
control anaemia in women, which you are to develop as the Director of National Nutrition
Programmes.
In preparing your essay, you should select a specific country and cover the following areas:
• Start your essay by briefly describing the epidemiology, trends, and disease
burden of anaemia in women of reproductive age in the country.
• In addition, describe the current program, its strengths, and its weaknesses.
• Outline the objectives of your intervention package and the approach to
implementing the interventions.
• Describe your new strategy and the interventions you would implement to control
anaemia in women. Include a diagram showing the program’s impact pathway.
• You should review the evidence regarding the effectiveness of the components of
your strategy in your setting or in other countries to justify their inclusion in the
program.
• When developing anaemia control strategies, consider other diseases or conditions
that need to be addressed to ensure the success of the new program.
4. You oversee a multi-sectoral nutrition program in a high- or middle-income country and
have identified the need to adopt a set of whole-of-food system approach to improve nutrition.
You can choose up to 3 approaches to describe. Examples of approaches (policies and
programs) include school feeding programs, agricultural policies, taxes on unhealthy food.
Your country is experiencing a double burden of malnutrition, with increasing rates of
overweight and obesity in adults and children; however, in some parts of the country,
underweight persist.
In preparing your essay, you should select a specific country and cover the following areas:
• Start your essay by naming your selected country and briefly describing the
epidemiology, trends, and disease burden of: a) overweight and obesity and b)
underweight individuals in the country.
• Describe the current food system, highlighting its limitations. You may wish to
describe some or all of the following: agricultural food production, supply chains,
food trade and imports, the types of places (the food environment) from which
people acquire food (e.g. supermarkets, markets, home gardens), the presence
or absence of school lunch programs, and the differences in food available in
urban and rural areas
• Outline the objectives of your food system approach/es and briefly outline your
approach to implementing these. Approaches could include taxes, school lunch
programs, marketing restrictions, and agricultural interventions.
• Describe how your selected food system approach/es to improving food system
outcomes (nutrition, environmental sustainability and livelihoods) especially in
terms of reducing overweight and obesity. Include a diagram showing the
approach’s predicted impact pathway or (pathways if you select more than 1
approach).
• You should review the evidence regarding the effectiveness of the components of
your food system approach/es in your setting or in other countries to justify their
inclusion in the program.
• Explain and justify your choices regarding the interventions to improve the food
environment in the personal and external domains.
5. You oversee nutrition programs in a low- or middle-income country and have identified
childhood stunting as an important public health nutrition problem. Furthermore, UN
organisations are urging you to do more to ensure that your country reaches the World Health
Assembly targets for the reduction of childhood stunting by 2030.
In preparing your essay, you should select a specific country and cover the following areas:
• Begin your essay by briefly describing the epidemiology, trends, and disease
burden of childhood undernutrition in the country.
• In addition, describe the current programs and their strengths and weaknesses.
• Outline the objectives of your intervention package and the approach to
implementing the interventions.
• Describe your new strategy and the package of interventions you would implement to
reduce childhood stunting. Include a diagram showing the program’s impact
pathway.
• You should review the evidence regarding the effectiveness of the components of
your strategy in your setting or in other countries to justify their inclusion in the
program.
• When developing your stunting control strategy, consider the possibility of food- insecure populations and adjust your programs to accommodate them.
Instructions
You should carefully prepare arguments for your essay and provide relevant references. The
word limit for the assignment is 3500 words. Your assignment will be marked according to
the criteria provided below: In addition, make sure you look at the Canvas marking rubric.
Submit your assignment to the Canvas GLOH5136 site by 11:59 PM AEDT (Sydney time) on
Wednesday, 19 November 2025.
CRITERIA
(please also
refer to
marking
rubric,
downloada ble here)
Mark
Description of the epidemiology, trends and disease burden of
the nutritional condition
/10
Description of the current programs or food system /10
Appropriateness of the proposed new intervention, including
aims, strategy, key elements & approach to implementation
/20
Review of evidence and rationale for including different
components in the intervention
/15
Analysis and interpretation of information /10
Use of evidence and critical thought /10
Structure of paper /10
Referencing and sources /10
Style and format of paper /5
Penalty (if any)
TOTAL GRADE /100
High Distinction
>85
Distinction
75-84
Credit
65-74
Pass
50- 64
Fail
<50
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