| Grant number: | 06/02597-0 |
| Support type: | Regular Research Grants |
| Duration: | March 01, 2007 - February 28, 2009 |
| Field of knowledge: | Health Sciences - Collective Health - Public Health |
| Principal researcher: | Jose Augusto de Aguiar Carrazedo Taddei |
| Grantee: | Jose Augusto de Aguiar Carrazedo Taddei |
| Home Institution: | Departamento de Pediatria. Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
Abstract
As from 1970 the number of day care centers in Brazil has increased considerably. In the state of São Paulo the level of teaching at day care centers was the most growing one over the last years. In 2003, the number of children attended in the public sector was 766.914. This fact shows the relevance of the day care center as a health promotion politics for these children. Among the most prevalent morbidities, the nutritional disturbances are stressed, mainly, the anemia which is the most prevalent nutritional disturbance all over the world. In Brazil, recent studies show rates of over 60% for infants.The iron deficiency in this age group may lead to irreversible sequals in the central nervous system and consequently to reductions of intelectual potential and sub-patterns of performance in millions of individuals, impairing their inclusion into the society.The "Política Nacional de Educação Infantil" (National Policy for Children Education) empahsizes that the training of child educators should prepare them for the development of a pedagogical project including contents on the health promotion in day care centers.In this context, some effective changes in the institutional attendance should occur, based on scientific improvement criteria of the technological components of products and processes, where respectively are important the adequacy of facilities, equipment and foods offered as much as the qualification of educators on health care and child nutrition.For such a purpose, a training manual has been developed for the employees of day care centers based on solutions and improvements of deficiencies found, that is being coedited by UNIFESP and Editora Manole to be published in June 2006. Based on the content and the pedagogical proposals of this manual, a 40-hour college extension course was created (UNIFESP Pro-Dean's extension office - (protocol n. 1485) - Nutrition and Health of infants: training for infant educators at day care centers (available in http://proex.epm.br/).This project proposes the training, supervision and evaluation of a sample of day care center educators working with lactents, by offering this course; the observation of the incorporated knowledge, changes in developed activities and follow-up of health and nutritional satus of lactents attended, in order to testing the efficacy of this intervention as a technology of social interest. The study will be performed in eight day care centers. Studied population will comprise all child educators (N=80) and all day care center lactents (N=200) participating in the project. The present study is an institutional randomized trial with concomintant control group and a follow-up period of one year. A first evaluation on the nutritional status and anemia of all lactents as well as on health and nutritional knowledge and practices will be performed in the beginning. Training for the day care center educators group exposed in the first month will be provided. Two additional evaluations will be performed in the 6th and 12th months, in all included institutions. Data collection on children will be made using a questionnaire, anthropometry and dosage of hemoglobin levels. Data collection on educators will be performed by filling a questionnaire and performing focal groups. Epi Info 2000 and Stata 8.0 will be used for quantitative analysis. It is expected an effective change of actions developed by educators concerning child nutrition and health promotion and, consequently an improvement of lactents´ health and nutritional status during the period of this study. The efficiency proved by this training for educators will result in a low-cost instrument available to all health professionals, which is easy applicable and of a great impact on the improvement of childrens health and nutrition at similar institutions. (AU)
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