Negros Oriental – Malnutrition is one of the problems that every community is facing and to identify and locate malnourished children, Operation Timbang (OPT) Plus is conducted to weigh and measure the height of every preschooler in the community who is 0-59 months old or younger every year. This is conducted by OPT Plus Team which includes barangay nutrition scholars, barangay health workers, and some members of the barangay nutrition committee every January to March.

The purpose of OPT Plus is to collect data for nutrition assessment, planning, management, and evaluation of the nutrition program. The conduct of OPT Plus specifically aims to locate families with underweight, stunted, wasted, overweight, and obese preschool children; early detect growth faltering among infants and preschool children; urge parents, guardians, and caregivers to bring their children for regular nutrition assessment; determine priority areas and individuals for local program implementation; the results would serve as the basis for appropriate health and nutrition services, and generally assess the effectiveness of local nutrition program.

It is important that the OPT Plus data collected complies with the data quality rules including its completeness, timeliness (current), integrity (credible), consistency, accuracy (correct), and validity (checked) or the 6 Cs of the dimensions of data quality. Completeness would mean at least 80% of the target children to be weighted or measured are covered. Timeliness would entail that the data collected is current and covers the prescribed period based on the OPT Plus guidelines and that is every first quarter of the year. Integrity means that the data are collected and recorded truthfully. Consistency implies that the data gathered uses the same tool and is done the same way over time. Accuracy means that the result of a measurement conforms with the standard while validity means its genuine and authentic.

In order to identify priority areas for nutrition programs, projects and activities, and resource allocation, the National Nutrition Council processes the results of OPT Plus every year and creates a list of cities and municipalities that are considered nutritionally at risk. This list is then shared with the government and non-government organizations, members of the scaling-up nutrition movement, and other nutrition stakeholders. The better-quality data collected at the grassroots level can help agencies and organizations provide appropriate interventions that address the malnutrition problem thereby improving the overall nutritional status of the community. // ND II Shaira Vita A. Calumpang, RND