School-Based Assessment of Micronutrient Interventions in Adolescents in Burkina Faso

This study aims to implement and evaluate micronutrient supplementation interventions to improve adolescent nutrition, health and education in Burkina Faso. Findings from this study will clarify the optimal supplementation strategy (iron and folic acid alone or adding other essential nutrients) and provide a basis for scale up of national micronutrient supplementation programs to benefit the adolescent population as a whole in Burkina Faso.

This will be a cluster randomized study with 3 arms. 42 schools per country will be enrolled (14 schools per arm) to receive either 1) daily Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) and weekly Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) for the first 5 weeks and daily MMS for the remainder of the study; or 2) weekly IFA; or 3) to serve as controls. As recommended by the World Health Organization in settings where continuous supplementation is not possible, supplementation will be intermittent. Supplementation will be provided for 3 months, stopped for 3 months over the school summer holidays and resumed for 3 months once students return to school after the holiday. Students in intervention schools will receive supplementation and students in control schools will receive the usual care (which does not include supplementation but does include existing curriculum on nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene [WASH]). The program will be evaluated comparing effects of weekly IFA and daily MMS on anemia status and school attendance/retention.

Inclusion criteria

• Adolescents aged 10-17 years
• Enrolled in secondary school form 1 at study initiation
• Member of one of the selected classes in a participating school
• Consent provided by the parent
• Assent provided by the adolescent
• Fluency in French

Exclusion criteria

• No informed consent from parent or assent from adolescent
• Self-reported Pregnancy