7th Annual Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Nutrition Scientific Symposium on Agriculture – Nutrition Pathways
December 10-12, 2019, Hotel Yak and Yeti, Kathmandu
Funded by USAID, and being co-hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Medicine, Nepal Agricultural Research Council and the Nepali Technical Assistance Group.
Deadline Extended: July 25, 2019, 12 am EDT
You are invited to submit abstracts on research focused on agriculture – nutrition pathways. We welcome abstracts that cover cross-cutting and interdisciplinary research as well as those within disciplinary bounds that demonstrate their relevance to understand these complex pathways. Submitted abstracts should clearly link to one of the of symposium’s themes.
Symposium Themes:
- Understanding and enhancing the links between agriculture, nutrition and resilience
- Strengthening agricultural market value chains to clarify agricultural potential to improve food security in rural areas
- From agriculture to food security to diet to nutrition: Search for causal pathways
- Undernutrition, overweight and micronutrient deficiencies: Does this triple burden exist in Nepal?
- Risk factors for undernutrition, overweight, micronutrient deficiencies, and all three
- Policy options that target the one, both or all three burdens of malnutrition
- The private sector’s role in preventing the triple burden of malnutrition
- Nutrition-sensitive programs: findings from formative research, implementation research and impact evaluations
- Protecting safety, reducing wastage of the food supply: from regulations to small-scale solutions
- Public-private partnerships and their role in improving food security and nutrition
- Innovations in assessing nutritional status and dietary intake
- Sociocultural norms and their influence on food choices and participation in nutrition-sensitive programs
- Macro and micro factors influencing agricultural production
- Farmers’ resilience in adapting to food security and nutritional shocks
- Inequities across the agriculture- nutrition pathway: Groups at risk and why? (high risk groups included socially marginalized groups, women, adolescents)
Guidelines for Abstract Submission
Please carefully review all guidelines prior to developing your abstract. Abstracts will be considered for oral or poster presentation. Instructions for abstract submission must be strictly followed to be considered for presentation.
Instructions for Abstract Submission:
- Abstracts should be no more than 500 words excluding the title, authors and affiliations
- Use a 12-point type size and Arial font.
- Use single-spacing when submitting the abstract.
- Adhere to Standards of Evidence
- Proof read abstract for accuracy and grammatical errors.
Please follow the format below for your abstract:
- Title: Please include a title followed by a period. Authors: Continue with all name(s), affiliations, and address(es) (city and country) of author(s), followed by a period. Underline the name of the individual who will give the presentation.
- Background: Provide a brief description of the problem/topic being researched or the problem/issue being addressed by a program.
- Objective/Aim: For research papers, provide the objective/aim the study’s importance or relevance to the field and the major hypotheses. For program papers, provide the objectives of the program.
- Methods: For research papers, describe clearly the design or methodology of the study including measurements used. For program papers, describe the theoretical framework/conceptual framework/impact pathway of the program and provide a description of the program’s design and implementation. Also include, what methods (for example: step-wedge design, adequacy, plausibility, before/after evaluations) were used to study the program before, during and after its implementation and data collection methods used.
- Results: For research papers, outline major results (with statistical significance figures as appropriate). For program papers provide the outcome and/or process evaluation results. This section must be clear and results must be reported in the abstract for it to be considered.
- Conclusions: For research papers, provide major conclusions based on the findings. For program papers, describe the program’s implications.
Queries can be sent to: nilsymposium@gmail.com
Standards of Evidence
Abstracts are invited to be submitted for review using the following type of research and study designs. Directly addressing the causal pathway includes efficacy and effectiveness research that can directly evaluate impact. Efficacy is the extent to which an intervention (technology, procedure, service, food delivery, and nutrients) improves a condition when known to be delivered through a defined system. Effectiveness refers to effects of an intervention when delivered under usual program conditions. Both are best determined by the conduct of randomized field trials, which can vary in design and detail. Pseudo-experimental designs, including non-random allocation and before-after evaluations, offer a lesser degree of evidence on cause and effect, but are often an only option. Non-intervention evidence can offer strength in association that may be consistent with impact or raise hypotheses about impact and modifiable risk factors. Epidemiological approaches can link individual exposures to status or outcomes. Marketing studies can track food product flow, value added and present evidence of availability and access. Ecological studies relate to community characteristics and associations that may reflect food security in an area. Surveys provide cross- sectional descriptions of existing situations, status profiles and prevalence in a population. Surveillance reveals trends in health and nutritional status, dietary availability, access and intake, over time, typically assessed as community panels or longitudinally in individuals. Qualitative studies must present how and why specific legitimizing criteria (theory and methods) were chosen in ensuring the robustness of their inquiries.
Selection process
Abstracts will be reviewed by an expert panel comprising of academics with varied topical expertise. Abstracts will be selected based on relevance to event themes and, clarity, quality and merit of research and abstract. Work in progress will be considered only for posters.