Guatemala Project - Vatanparast Nutritional Epidemiology Lab (VNEL)

Guatemala Project

Chronic malnutrition in northern Guatemala is the highest among Latin American countries and the third highest in the world. By promoting sustainable food production, processing, marketing, and consumption, the research team seeks to improve dietary diversity and nutritional status among Indigenous communities in the Department of Totonicapán, Guatemala. The goal of this One Health project is to explore the links between ethnic and gender inequities, food insecurity, animal health and malnutrition in Totonicapán, Guatemala, and establish and demonstrate food production models. This will set the stage for Phase II, which will involve documentation of the impact of diversified food production and processing on nutritional health among Indigenous communities with a community-based clinical trial design.

Main Focus

Although Indigenous populations, women of childbearing age and children born later in the birth order are at increased risk of malnutrition, there is little understanding of the underlying pathways that lead to these outcomes, nor how to effectively reverse these trends. This project focuses on identifying and developing intervention opportunities to reduce ethnic and gender inequities related to social determinants of health and consequently improve people’s dietary diversity and nutritional status in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner.

Procedure

Specific activities will include mapping the local production and distribution of food, household procurement and use of food, and documenting nutritional health issues with attention to the impact of ethnic and gender relations. We will also seek out and build relationships with community-based farmers’ and women’s organizations to build community capacity for scaling up the project. Our long-term plans involve implementing agricultural activities to scale up diversified, sustainable crop and livestock production among vulnerable small farmers; exploring processing and marketing options; measuring their impact on household income and expenditure patterns, as well as nutritional status.