Effectiveness of milk fortification program in Mexico on child anemia and cognitive development – a population based assessment

This paper examines the effectiveness of a national milk fortification program in Mexico, and the impact on anemia and cognitive outcomes among children. In Mexico, anemia is prevalent in pre- and school-aged children and women. As iron deficiency anemia can be linked to many negative health and non-health outcomes, such as poor cognitive development, food fortification programs have been introduced to improve iron status of children. Liconsa is a social assistance program in Mexico that provides subsidized fortified milk, especially to children under 12 years of age. The objective of our study is to assess the population-level effectiveness of the Liconsa milk fortification program on child anemia and cognitive development. With nationally representative longitudinal health surveys from Mexico, we estimated the effect of being a Liconsa beneficiary household, and the effect of the intervention of fortification of Liconsa milk on anemia and long-term child cognitive development using the modified Poisson model with robust error variance. Results show that males had significantly reduced risk of anemia. There were also significant positive effects of receiving Liconsa milk in 2002 on the reduced risk of anemia measured in 2005 and increased cognitive test scores for children aged 5 and older.