Nutritional needs assessment of rural agricultural migrants of southern Brazil: designing, implementing and evaluating a nutrition education program.

A nutritional needs assessment was conducted among rural agricultural migrant women (target group) and children (less than 5 years). The study was conducted in Vila Diogo, a slum located on the periphery of Nuporanga, a village in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. A nutrition education program was designed on the basis of evidence obtained from demographic/socioeconomic information of the study population and a nutritional needs assessment of women (target group) and children less than 5 years of age. The nutritional needs assessment consisted of anthropometry, dietary assessment, and nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs questionnaires. Formative and summative evaluation of the nutrition education program, using appropriately selected criteria and comparisons of nutrition knowledge scores before and after the program, were used to determine program effectiveness. Major findings of the study were: Diets of Vila Diogo residents were generally simplistic, consisting primarily of rice, beans, and coffee with sugar. Vila Diogo women appeared to be at a relatively high risk for vitamin A, iron, calcium, ascorbic, and riboflavin deficiencies, based on comparisons of 24-hour dietary intake data with FAO recommendations. Children (2-5 years) appeared at high risk for vitamin A, iron, and ascorbic acid deficiencies, based on comparisons of 24-hour dietary intake data with FAO recommendations. All children less than 5 years of age had been breast-fed at birth, but more than one half of children had been weaned by the third month. Infant feeding practices during fever and diarrhea were nutritionally detrimental. Women generally recognized a relationship between dietary intake during pregnancy and fetal nourishment. Using weight-for-height index, a significant number of women were probably undernourished; a small percentage of women, however, were overweight or obese. Although children less than 5 years of age did not generally appear malnourished, a relatively large number were stunted in growth. Although Vila Diogo women reported many food taboos during various physiological states (menstruation, pregnancy, immediately post partum, lactation), relatively few food taboos had potentially negative nutritional consequences. For women who participated in the nutrition education program, nutrition knowledge scores after the program showed improvement which was statistically significant at alpha = 0.05, using Wilcoxon signed rank test.