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Micronutrients in child health, their dietary adequacy in developing countries

Edited by:
Santhia Ireen, PhD, BRAC University, Bangladesh
Saima Kamal Thakur, MPH, MSc, University of Eastern Finland, Finland

Submission Status: Closed

This collection is no longer accepting submissions. 


Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition is calling for submissions to our Collection on Micronutrients in child health, their dietary adequacy in developing countries. Deficiencies of selected micronutrients, including vitamin A, vitamin B12, folate, vitamin D, iron, zinc, and iodine, are widespread among young children, adolescent girls, and women of childbearing age living in low- and middle-income countries. A recent estimate reported that the global prevalence of deficiency in at least one of three micronutrients is 56% among preschool-aged children, and 69% among non-pregnant women of reproductive age, equivalent to 372 million preschool-aged children and 1·2 billion non-pregnant women of reproductive age. These deficiencies are linked to various health and socio-economic consequences such as birth defects, susceptibility to infection, growth retardation, blindness, cognitive impairment, decreased school performance, and work productivity. They also increase the risk of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and heart problems. These human and economic costs affect countries at all development levels.

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About the Collection

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition is calling for submissions to our Collection on Micronutrients in child health, their dietary adequacy in developing countries. 

Insufficient micronutrient intake due to poor quality and quantity of diet is primarily responsible for this deficiency. However, both the density and bioavailability of micronutrients in the diet are important for achieving optimal micronutrient status.

New and innovative actions are necessary to ensure equitable access to nutritious, safe, and affordable diets that are micronutrient rich, particularly for women and young children globally. Three major food system approaches for the control of micronutrient malnutrition are dietary improvement, including horticulture intervention to increase production and consumption of micronutrient-rich foods, fortification of food with micronutrients, and supplementation of specific micronutrients. These are the most sustainable strategies to increase micronutrient status of the population. Global public health and disease control measures are also necessary. However, the success of these programs depends on strong and targeted social and behavioral change communication interventions integrated with the food system approaches.

Knowledge of the population's dietary micronutrient intake and effective intervention strategies for specific vulnerable groups are critical to inform the selection and design of proper strategies to fight micronutrient malnutrition. This Special Collection aims to address micronutrient malnutrition by providing cutting-edge scientific evidence, identifying unresolved problems and challenges, and disseminating evidence-based solutions that effectively address the issue among different age groups from different settings. This Special Collection welcomes original research, systematic review, and narrative review articles on a broad range of interventions, including but not limited to micronutrient biofortification, agriculture interventions, promotion of the intake of animal-source foods, social protection, food assistance programs, nutrition education, micronutrient supplementation, food fortification, water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions, and maternal and child nutrition programs. This Special Collection aims to inform the development of effective, sustainable, and cost-effective interventions that could be scaled up across different settings.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original research, systematic review, and narrative review articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. 

Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. Please, select the appropriate Collection title “Micronutrients in child health, their dietary adequacy in developing countries" under the “Details” tab during the submission stage.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer-review process. The peer-review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.