Helping countries sustain iodine programs

We at IGN have often reflected in this blog on the fragile nature of progress.  That’s why we’re all about sustainability.  We believe that countries should own the responsibility for iodizing their salt, and for monitoring iodine status to make sure that their population is protected from iodine deficiency.  The current cuts to development spending, whether transient or permanent, make sustainability more important than ever.

IGN helps countries towards sustainability by finding ways for governments to understand the situation easily and cost-effectively, and advising them on the right decisions for improvement, if required.

National iodine nutrition programs were set up decades ago.  Countries have often reviewed the drivers of success or failure since then, largely because the ways to do this are both slow and costly. In the intervening years, diets and lifestyles have changed, and we need to understand how this is impacting both programs and population iodine status.  IGN has created a simple, low-cost sentinel site methodology to assess iodine status because national representative household surveys are expensive for countries. We have designed a program assessment tool to assess the functionality and quality of salt iodization programs quickly and relatively easily. The tools to do this are being tested around the world with the support of the Gates Foundation and UNICEF and will cost-effectively contribute to national efforts to protect populations from deficiency.

The importance of these assessments is underlined by evidence that the problem is creeping back in countries across the world, with major publications such as Time Magazine and The Economist covering the issue. A re-emergence of the worst effects of iodine deficiency such as widespread goiter and severe mental and growth retardation, once common across the world, seems unlikely for now.  But although adequate iodine intake is essential for the health of the whole population, especially before and during pregnancy for optimal birth outcome and brain function in children, moderate deficiency still exists in every continent.  Today, in many places in the world – both poor and wealthy – women go into pregnancy without adequate iodine in their diet, resulting in substantial national costs, which could easily have been avoided.

The reduction in development spending, including the recent funding freeze in the United States, means that the problem of iodine deficiency, which is not easily visible or apparently immediate, is likely to get even less attention and resources than before. The cost of re-emergence would be heavy for countries, not only in terms of the human impact on children who will not reach their full potential, but because of the national health costs associated with an iodine-deficient population.

Now, more than ever, it is crucial for IGN to bring these cost-effective tools to countries to help them to understand and deal with potential problems, and to continue to make programs sustainable, so that children are protected against iodine deficiency.

An immediate task for us, as the only global watchdog on iodine deficiency, is to understand the impact of current reductions in development aid for iodine programs around the world.  Over the next few months, we will build a picture of the impact of reduced spending on tackling iodine deficiency on countries and the world.  We invite you to share your thoughts and will work with partners to make this assessment as comprehensive as possible. We ask you to support us in this work.

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