EXTREME MAKE-OVER: Nutrition survey

I am paid to re-write text, and make it more consumer-friendly. This is a sample of a recent piece:

MY EDITS:

The Republic of Yemen, south of Saudi Arabia and west of Oman, is surrounded by a host of oil-rich nations. Yet the strife-torn country is characterized by endemic poverty, weak health systems, and a severe shortage of water.

And now, a door-to-door survey conducted by the Internationl Organztion for Migratn (IOM) in September 2011 reveals that some parts of the country are also grappling with soaring rates of malnutrition.

900 children under the age of five participated in the survey, which was conducted in the Republic of Yemen’s northern Al-Jawf region. Results revealed that the country is on the verge of an emergency, with twice as many girls as boys found to have acute malnutrition.

The number of children suffering from malnutrition is expected to rise, owing to escalating civil strife, which makes the already hard-to-reach northern Al-Jawf region, more excluded from humanitarian assistance. Traditional practices like giving boys better food than girls, are expected to leave girls more vulnerable to malnutrition.


ORIGINAL PIECE:

IOM conducted a household nutrition survey of children under-5 in 6 districts of Northern Al-Jawf in September where IOM’s 5 mobile clinics are operating. The survey was implemented as part of a vulnerability assessment of the Al Jawf population. 900 children under five were measured for their age, height and weight from 30 villages across the six districts. The result of this assessment shows that 7.7% of the children suffer from SAM and 21% from MAM, both indicators being above the emergency threshold. Furthermore, when the same information is analyzed based on gender, it was found out that the proportion of girls suffering from acute malnutrition is significantly higher than boys, notably SAM (9.0% of girls and 5.7% of boys) – girls are 1.6 times more likely than boys to suffer from SAM. With the ongoing crisis affecting the whole country, and further isolation of Al-Jawf from the very limited basic services available to the Yemeni population, the number of children suffering from malnutrition is expected to rise even more in the coming months, which will ultimately result in higher morbidity and mortality. The traditional attitude of providing better food and care for boys will especially put girls even more at risk. OFDA funding July 2010 – December 2011.

END//

Region: Yemen, Middle East
Theme(s): Migration, Health, Humanitarian assistance

The author is a health communications consultant. Follow her on Twitter [@msanyuosire] & keep tabs on tips she shares with health communications officers by "liking" her facebook page [Mary-Sanyu Osire].