Synergy between malnutrition and infection (INCAP)
Sinergia entre desnutrición e infección (INCAP)
- Date
- 1959-1968 · confidence medium
- Place
- INCAP, Guatemala City, Guatemala
- Credited to
- Nevin S. Scrimshaw, Carl E. Taylor and John E. Gordon
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Longitudinal studies in Guatemalan villages from 1959 onwards showed that childhood malnutrition and infection reinforce each other: infections worsen nutritional status and malnutrition increases the severity of infections. The 1968 WHO monograph established that concept as a foundation of public health nutrition.
The monograph Interactions of Nutrition and Infection (WHO, 1968) gathers the work of INCAP and other institutions; the concept of a vicious circle has since been refined.
What it led to
- integrated nutrition and infection-control programmes in childhood
- the basis of WHO and UNICEF strategies against child mortality
- the malnutrition-infection cycle in public health