3-5 December 2013—The National Nutrition Council-CAR in coordination with the Provincial Nutrition Committee of Abra Province visited the municipalities included on the top 100 Municipalities/Cities with high malnutrition prevalence in the country based on the 2012 Operation Timbang Results- an annual survey being conducted by Local Government Units. Four municipalities in Abra namely Boliney (17th), Lagayan (35th), Dolores (55th) and Danglas (73rd) were among the municipalities in the country included in the list.

Ms. Ma. Eileen Blanco, OIC- Nutrition Program Coordinator of the National Nutrition Council-CAR, said during the consultative meetings with the members of the local nutrition committees of the municipalities that one of the factors to consider and should be validated is on how the frontliners specifically the Barangay Nutrition Scholars and Barangay Health Workers measure the weights of children, how they compute age of the children in months and the measuring equipment used in determining the nutritional status of the preschool children.

Per findings, most of the barangays are still using bathroom scales in taking weights and most of the BNSs, BHWs and Midwives were not trained on the World Health Organization-Child Growth Standard, the latest growth reference index. The Local Chief Executives and officials committed to carry out appropriate actions like provision of logistics and trainings with technical assistance by NNC-CAR.

Moreover, LCEs also requested the nutrition action officers to validate the data from the barangay level before the consolidation of data at the municipal level.