将动物拒之门外，以改善营养

[CAPE TOWN] Keeping animals out of the home may improvechildhood nutrition根据在冈比亚村庄进行的一项研究，并减少了发育迟缓的实例。

The study analysed 230 children of Gambian staff living at the Medical Research Unit in rural Keneba between 1993 and 2009. The staff included scientists, physicians, laboratory technicians and support staff, such as cleaners. The population was chosen because of its diversity of wealth, education housing conditions and access to free health services.

“Not surprising, those with the lowest socio-economic scores had the shortest, most stunted children, and the gradient wasn’t as big as we’d expected,” says co-author Andrew Prentice, professor of international nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “The group at the top, however, had the widest variation.”

“我们推测打击营养不良的关键问题是管道水，将动物远离家乡。”

安德鲁·普伦蒂斯（Andrew Prentice），伦敦卫生与热带医学学院

Half ofchildrenin this upper grouping lived in Western-style housing with running water, flushable toilets and kept animals out of the home. The other half lived within the village without similar amenities.

Comparisons of these children showed that those living in Western-style houses grew well, with no incidents of stunting or underweight. Children in the village fared less well, with below average height and weight.

According to the 2017谁非洲营养报告在2016年，有5850万儿童受到阻碍 - 对自己的年龄太短。全球目标包括到2025年五岁以下儿童的低重量儿童的数量减少了40％。

Keeping animals such as poultry, which can be disease carriers, free range in the home can contribute to childhood疾病that exacerbate malnutrition, Prentice explains. “We speculate the key issue [to combat malnutrition] is piped water and keeping animals out of the home,” he says.

这项研究是11月1日在BMC Medicine发表，仅限于冈比亚。道格·莫伯特（Doug Mombert）是南非威特沃特斯兰大学（Witwatersrand）大学的博士研究员，他说，整个非洲大陆的背景和文化都有很大差异，在围绕畜牧业和小农耕种制定政策决策时，需要考虑到这一点。

尽管如此，决策者将从将研究的发现融入他们的发现中受益政策和实施计划,Mombert说,“好articulate and address the intricacies of water, sanitation and hygiene in various contexts”.

莫伯格说：“针对与健康相关的结果有关的WASH [水，卫生和卫生]的治理的针对性研究对于解决儿童不足的负担至关重要。”

这件作品由Scidev.net的撒哈拉以南非洲英语桌子制作。